


Brushing Death

by Lucy_Ferrier



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Don't copy to another site, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25726135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy_Ferrier/pseuds/Lucy_Ferrier
Summary: “It’s not worth it,” He tells Adil, far too knowing. “Dying’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Awful lonely it is.”“I don’t understand why I can see you. Any of you.”The man smiles sadly at Adil, almost pitying.“Death sticks darlin’. Just because you made it out doesn’t mean you didn’t touch it.”
Relationships: Toby Hamilton/Adil Joshi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10





	Brushing Death

**Author's Note:**

> based on a post I made about a month and a half ago that originally, I had no intention of writing out any further, and then szonklin left one (1) tag on the post *implying* that *hypothetically* she'd read it (after a relatively long chain of reblogs - I linked in the end notes so you can see exactly who's ideas are who's. Lady Theresa was definitely szonklin's idea). and then suddenly I had a wip. so thanks for that x
> 
> basically everyone who died gets to show up and annoy adil, and adil has to deal with it because he's the only one who can see them.

The thing about carbon monoxide,

Well, the thing about,

The thing,

The,

Well.

The thing about carbon monoxide is. 

It’s _sneaky._ It can’t be seen, it can’t be smelt; by all accounts dying from it is most probably an accident, and then there’s the immune response, eventually, and if your cells don’t suffocate, if your organs don’t fail well. There’s always brain inflammation. Stroke. There’s always that.

But the thing about carbon monoxide is that it’s everywhere. It’s so easy to find. So easy to flick the switch, turn the knob, _it’s so easy._

And painless. Allegedly.

_“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. I love you.”_

Adil wasn’t sure why he was still alive. Well. He _knew._ But he didn’t know why Toby would do that, why he would _run_ to find him, why he would drag him from his room, why he would hold him close after, why he would say he loves him.

Why would he do that.

Adil remained sat beside Toby on the stairs unspeaking, leaning slightly on his shoulder for support. The back of Adil’s mind attempted to replay their last conversation together, but it blurs when he looks too close to it, the words muffle and distort, like they were underwater. Like they’re being suffocated.

But somehow, they feel more real than this. Whatever this is.

His head hurts, and he’s dizzied when he stands; Toby pulling him up, an anxious half-smile twisting his face, tear tracks gleaming in the low light, and Adil tries not to fall back against him. Toby is familiar, and warm, and he _missed_ him. But Toby is also cruel, and he knows exactly how to hurt him best, and Adil can’t bring himself to trust him again just yet.

Toby frowns at him when the short walk down the stairs to the front door leaves Adil winded, and for a moment it seems like he might say something, his mouth already beginning to open, when Adil walks straight past him, dead-eyed stare turning the world around him wispy and dreamlike. Neither of them notice the sirens until London goes silent once again, in as much as it ever does, especially these days.

They walk side by side back to the Halcyon. Adil doesn’t know why he’s going back there with Toby. He supposes, vaguely, that he doesn’t really have anywhere else to stay the night. The windows in his flat are small, and often swell shut. And truth be told, Adil is even less keen to go back there, alone or not, than he is about going back to the hotel and explaining to Mr Garland why he left work early on their busiest night.

Adil is breathless by the time the hotel comes into view.

Well.

What’s left of it.

Bricks and smoke and bodies. Strewn across the pavement and onto the road. Corpses, lined in neat little rows, uncovered, unclaimed. No one has come to help yet; no ambulances, no fire engines; although they could be heard a handful of blocks over, on their way. sirens broke through the wails of the guests, the staff oddly silent now.

Lady Hamilton notices Toby first. Fresh tears wear new tracks over the old ones when she reaches her son, her torn dress hems floating absentmindedly around her ankles. She clings to Toby as she cries, she whispers; _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,_ and Toby doesn’t know what she means, how could he, but he clings back, because what else can he do? The night has been long, and coming home was mean to be the easy part. Priscilla’s eyes meet Adil’s briefly aver Toby’s shoulder, regarding him for a second with a pained expression, and she whispers it again; _I’m sorry,_ unblinking, before tucking her head into the crook to Toby’s shoulder to hide how she’s shaking.

With Toby’s back still turned, Adil slips away. He wanders through the crowds of people, the living curled together as if they could hide away from everything, tear tracks on shoulders; trading jackets for warmth. It was strange, seeing high society ladies with their hair falling from their pins, sticking to blood and sweat and ash. Within the hotel, voices continued to call out to each other; _we’ve got another one,_ and _mind your head,_ and _watch out for-_

No one tries to stop him, everyone trapped in their own heads; tunnel vision and dead bodies. Adil makes his way over to where he thinks he can see Sonny, watching and waiting for something Adil can’t see or hasn’t noticed. His chest feels tight, and Adil worries he might throw up again, nausea and dizziness growing incrementally throughout the night and now all the more impossible to ignore.

The lamppost flickers, Sonny seeming to disappear with the light for a half-second, causing Adil to pause and rub at his eyes, black spots dancing from his peripheral and into his line of sight.

Sonny smiles in greeting, but doesn’t speak. There’s blood running freely from his left ear, and something about his throat and the shape of his chest appears strange to Adil. As if it had been crushed by something heavy. He wonders how he only just noticed it.

But upon trying to inspect Sonny’s injuries, they shift, his chest filling out again, the bloodstains disappearing from the glowing white bib of his suit.

“Sonny…?” Confused by the change, Adil sways where he stands, reaching out for Sonny’s arm to steady himself.

His hand passes straight through him, and Sonny flinches, eyes wide, and the blood is back, and it goes; _drip, drip, drip,_ from his wounds onto the pavement, and Adil doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand, he doesn’t-

Back across the street Mr Robbie and another man exit the hotel, bearing a stretcher between them, heads bowed. There have been enough bodies recovered by now that no one screams when they see who it is.

The two men lower him to the ground, beside another body, a familiar body. Adil sucks in a panicked breath, so fast he chokes, doubling over coughing. His hands shake, and something goes _drip, drip, drip,_ but it’s not him, and actually, it doesn’t quite reach the pavement. Lying on the ground, across the street, lies Sonny, his chest caved in. Like it was crushed by something heavy. Beside him, Emma sits clinging to another body, her long dress stained with filth, dark curls mattered with blood.

“Sonny…” comes a voice, just above a whisper behind Adil. Both men turn around, and Betsey continues unaware. “Sonny… I found you… I. I couldn’t find you.” She mutters over and over, reaching up idly to her head wound that continues to bleed. Sonny smiles at her, reaches out, catches a hold of her arm. Pulls her close.

Adil can’t stop shaking. He can’t make his lungs work. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t-

Those black spots have begun to clump together, dancing in his line of sight, but now they’re clouding over, and he can’t stop shaking.

“Adil, what’s wrong?” Betsey asks, eyes crinkled with concern.

“I… I don’t…” He can’t get enough air; he’s choking through every breath he takes and he can’t get enough air.

“Adil?”

He looks back over at the bodies on the pavement, their bodies on the pavement, in a panic, then back at them. He’s choking on air, and he’s dizzy with everything that’s happened and happening and it’s too much it’s too much it’s too much it’s too much it’s too-

His legs give out, and the rest of him follows in a dead faint.

…

When he wakes up in the hospital, there’s a rubber oxygen mask covering his face, that Adil immediately begins tugging at, confused and claustrophobic. Across the room, there’s a nurse attending another patient, fiddling with a blood pressure cuff, smile plastered on her face, but it’s wane, tired. Adil doesn’t think the man lying in that bed will last much longer either.

It’s not until Adil drags himself into a sitting position that he notices Toby sat in the chair on the other side of the bed, asleep, his head threatening to fall off of where its propped on his hand. He feels his heart swell at the sight, but it’s a distant thing, like he can’t feel it properly, his body numb and cold. Disconnected. He swallows, throat dry, pulse ticking nervous and fast.

He watches Toby in silence until he really does slide off where he’s propped himself up, jolting himself awake.

Adil only stares for a moment before he asks him; asks him why he saved him.

“Because I love you,” Toby’s voice is quiet, it trembles until it breaks, eyes holding Adil’s and pleading with him; _I’m sorry, I lied, I lied, I lied, believe me, I love you._

Adil feels his eyes flutter shut, unable to keep looking at him. He feels himself clench his jaw, feels the way his teeth cushion together, the muscles in his face contract, eyes screwing shut properly. He swallows around an emotion, thick and hot and-

_Oh._

He’s angry. He almost smiles at the realisation. Weeks and weeks of snide remarks and belittlements, and yes, some of them deserved, Adil knows he’s no saint, but that last conversation, _that last conversation,_ he’d pleaded and he’d begged and he’d given up. Weeks and weeks he’d tried to make things right, tried to find a chance to explain himself, but Toby walked out each time, his own fury on his face, and maybe he deserved it, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t beaten himself up enough over what he’d done, over D’abbervile and his lies and snide remarks and his threats. Wanting to keep Toby out of it, to keep him safe, _just once more, just once more, I’m finished with this, this time I’m finished with this._

“No.”

“What?” Toby asks, a hint of panic leaking into his voice.

No. Because _how dare he._ How dare he say it now, after everything that had happened.

Hearing Toby say he loved him was _everything_ Adil had ever wanted to hear. But.

But.

And wasn’t that just it?

“Why do you think it makes it okay when you say it?” Adil’s throat is raw, but his face is set and cold when he opens his eyes, pulls himself up fully and faces Toby properly.

“I don’t understand.” Toby curls in on himself, not defensive, but as if bracing for an attack he can’t see coming, eyes wide and baffled.

“It’s not like it was ever enough when I said it.” His anger leaks into his voice this time, but only because now he wants to cry and won’t give Toby the satisfaction, not this time. Although, he figures there’s only so long he can hold onto that; Toby may always be his biggest weakness. And maybe, possibly, subconsciously, Toby had known that too, that evening in the hotel.

Toby feels his jaw drop slightly, terror washing through him all over again. He opens his mouth to explain, but that’s just it again isn’t it? And what could he possibly say? That he was trying to protect him? Look what happened! Tears well in his eyes, and he squeezes them shut, a poor attempt at holding onto them.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers helplessly.

“I think you should leave.” Adil tilts his face away from Toby as he says it, making eye contact with the arm of the chair. His voice doesn’t break. He just sounds defeated.

Toby hesitates, still processing. His face shutters as he moves to get up, moving slowly, like he accepts it even if he can’t quite believe it. Adil winces, tears finally falling as he stares at Toby’s back as the other man reaches to retrieve his jacket.

“You always believe the worst of people, you know that, right?” Adil swallows thickly, resisting the urge to curl up in a foetal position until after Toby leaves. “Only you would listen when I tell you to leave, but not when I say I love you.”

When Toby straightens and half turns back around in surprise, Adil continues, not giving Toby a chance to speak over him, regardless of how softly he speaks, mindful that they are not alone on the ward.

“I still love you. I probably shouldn’t, but I can’t even say I wish I didn’t,” he clenches his jaw, frustrated with himself. “But you… you are _so_ much Toby. And I…” He sighs. “I’m sorry.”

Toby’s face is as blank as he can manage, which for Adil, is still very much an open book. His hands shake, but he nods, awkward. “Me too. For everything.”

Adil watches him leave, listens to his footsteps fade down the corridor, before burying his face into his pillow, drawing his legs up protectively, and tries to stop crying.

…

Someone died in this bed.

Probably more than one person, but Adil knows this because there is a woman sitting cross-legged in a white patient gown at the foot of the bed, long red hair falling from its braid. Sometimes her skin is riddled with pockmarks, her eyes weeping with pus. Right now, her skin is clear, and she regards him tiredly, a strawberry blonde toddler with matching pockmarks curled up in her lap.

He can’t bring himself to ask how old she is. Or why she’s here.

Adil continues to stare at her, not listening while Joe continues to ramble about the hotel. If after a while Adil lays back down, pulling the hospital blanket up over his head so he can’t see the ghost in the bed across from him, or the man who the nurse had faked smiles for only yesterday, well. That’s his business.

Eventually Joe leaves, poorly hiding his own hurts and resignation, leaving him with promises to meet him outside the hospital when they release Adil tomorrow morning. Adil nods. He fakes a smile.

The woman watches as Joe leaves, then turns back to Adil.

“Gosh, does he ever stop talking?” she asks in a matching American accent, eyes crinkling in a smile.

…

The woman’s name was Rose. She scrunched up her nose when she told Adil; said that her mother was the least imaginative woman she ever met. She came to England during the depression looking for work for her husband. She smiles and says she’ll keep Adil in her thoughts after he leaves. Says she hopes he feels better soon.

“They wouldn’t let me out if they thought I wasn’t better.” He says, head ducked so no one can see him speaking.

Rose smiles, sad and knowing. “Of course not sweetheart.”

…

There’s a ghost in Adil’s building.

He’s a fairly young man, with a receding hairline. Apparently, he jumped off the roof. He shoots Adil a sympathetic look when he gets home.

“It’s not worth it,” He tells Adil, far too knowing. “Dying’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Awful lonely it is.”

“I don’t understand why I can see you. Any of you.”

The man smiles sadly at Adil, almost pitying.

“Death sticks darlin’. Just because you made it out doesn’t mean you didn’t touch it.”

…

It takes time, although not as much as one would think, for the Halcyon to patch herself up enough to reopen the bar, and Adil finds himself out of work for the first time in five years. But when the bar recovers enough that it can be reopened, Adil finds a letter, shoved under his door. Offering his old job back.

In hindsight, Adil thinks he probably should have hesitated. But his building is full of ghosts; people that he’d never even known had lived there, some of them decades older than him yet somehow never to be as old as him, and they follow him and they badger him. They all _know,_ somehow, what happened. What he did. Their curiosity is suffocating.

So instead he immediately reaches for a handful of coins and runs down the stairs to the nearest payphone.

…

In all the years that Adil had worked at the Halcyon, he’d had very few reasons to spend time near the offices. Bar work was fairly restricted to the bar and the store rooms, but coming back to work meant that he had to speak to Mr Garland first; to pretend to jump through the hiring hoops as if he didn’t already have the job in question.

But he didn’t expect to see Billy in the corridor, sitting on the floor and leaning back against the door frame, apparently listening intently to a conversation between Mrs Hobbs and Mrs Taylor…

_Oh._

“Billy…?”

It left him as a broken whisper and Adil nearly smacked into the wall, eyes caught, the boy in question looking up in surprise, eyes widening comically.

“But you’re not dead.”

Adil quirks his mouth up on one side in an approximation of a dry smile, but otherwise doesn’t reply.

“Don’t suppose you’ve seen m’sister ‘round? I ‘aven’t seen her in a while is all.”

“N-no, sorry.”

Billy shrugged, leaning his face back against the door frame, glancing up at where his mother sat hunched around the switchboard once more. “’S’okay.”

“Mr Joshi!” Mr Garland had his usual over charmed smile gracing his face as he greeted Adil, ushering him into his office.

“I’ll see you later,” Billy called after him.

…

It was almost a relief, seeing Betsey and Sonny in the bar, even knowing they weren't really there.

“Oh, I _know_ she isn’t better than me.”

And the auditions for the new band likely would have gone quite smoothly if it weren’t for Betsey’s persistent commentary, regardless of the accuracy of such accusations.

“ _She_ sounds like a dog in the middle o’ getting run over by a _car._ ”

It was probably a good thing that Adil was the only living person who could hear her.

“And _that._ Is not how you play a god damn piano!”

But it was starting to make it difficult to focus on his own work in the bar, when he felt compelled to look up at the stage every few minutes in order to determine whether or not Betsey was, _technically,_ correct.

“D’you reckon I would be able to mess up the mic when she gets her next go Adil? I’m actually getting concerned that she might get picked…”

Honestly, if he thought that trying to communicate with Toby in the bar without getting caught had been a lesson in subtlety… they’d really had no idea, had they?

“Oi! I dunno what you’re moping about now Adil, but I need all your attention! Right now!”

It did make for a good distraction though. Small mercies and all that.

…

Sonny, perhaps, was not as critical of the new people signing up for the pianist’s position, compared to how Betsey was of the singers. In fact, fairly often he hummed along to their audition piece as Betsey critiqued their skills, his fingers tracing over imagined keys on the mirror-glass of the bar.

Far more often though, he’d lean against the wall behind Adil, just watching, occasionally offering fuel for Betsey’s criticism until they began bickering back and forth like an old married couple, passing on observations to Adil.

It made working in the bar again that much easier, even if it was all bittersweet.

The Halcyon did not have a band as of yet. Funnily enough the auditions never were quite successful, something that Betsey was more than a little smug about. As the duo began to figure out the limited ways they could interact with the world, the auditions became less smooth, but. Something good perhaps came out of it too.

It wouldn’t do for music to appear to come from nowhere while people were still coherent enough to grow anxious from it. But as the clock ticked over into one, then two am, Sonny walked up onto the stage. He took a moment just to run his fingers untouching through the keys of his piano, getting a feel for it again, before he took a breath, eyes closed.

It took concentration, to figure it out, to make it work. Contrary to popular belief, not many ghosts are all that good at haunting, much of the world passing straight through them. But the piano was _Sonny’s,_ so when he wanted to play, she listened.

Sonny grinned, the first time he managed to press down on a key.

There weren’t many people left in the bar, those who were left were half cut and stumbling, oblivious outside their immediate surroundings. Even if, by some miracle, they remembered piano music in the bar the next morning, no one would ever believe them.

The familiarity of mixing drinks to the sound of Sonny playing the piano was both easy and jarring for Adil. It was both easy and hard to forget that he was dead. That, really, no one was playing the piano, in fact, Adil was presumably the only living person in the bar who could see him, although perhaps, not the only one who could hear him.

Joe squinted at the stage from where he was well on his way to becoming outright legless at the bar, slumped over his last drink of the night.

“Do those piano keys look like they’re moving to you Adil?” Joe asked, somehow still managing not to slur his words.

Adil suppressed a smile. “I don’t think pianos can play themselves Mr O’Hara.”

“Hmm.” Joe glared down at his glass. “Bedtime for me I think.”

As Joe left, Betsey followed Sonny up onto the stage. She sat beside him, leaning slightly against his shoulder, and began to sing along, low notes floating across the room that no one else could hear.

They continued to play as the patrons filtered out of the room, and Adil cleared up the bar. Betsey waved to him as he left out the back.

…

Seeing Toby in the bar again though, that was hard.

That had been _theirs,_ and while Toby had been elsewhere Adil could focus on all the other memories and parts of the job, and of course the auditions, and the apparent influx of dead people in his bar, who, despite not being able to drink, kept insisting on being served.

Toby had seemed very nearly shell shocked to have seen him in the bar, in his uniform, as if no time had passed and nothing had changed. A tangle of ugly and unaddressed emotions, and disbelief at the fact that, well. That Adil had come back at all.

“Adil…” he said his name in a breathlessly, as if expecting Adil to disappear if he acknowledged him too loudly. His eyes were wide and hopeful, his lips bitten and chapped.

Adil shook his head minutely in response, eyes downcast. His emotions ran high at the best of times these days, and having Toby this close made him ache with everything he wanted and everything that had happened. He mixed Toby’s preferred drink before Toby could ask for it, wincing and hoping Toby wouldn’t read into it. Toby only watched, fingers trying only half-heartedly not to brush over Adil’s, his eyes peering up from under his eyelashes, as Toby retrieved his drink from Adil. Behind him, Adil heard someone cough awkwardly, and Adil froze.

He realised of course, that for _Toby,_ there were no other people behind the bar, and as such, of _course,_ that meant he could stand to be less subtle than he should have been, would have been, but that did not change the fact that for _Adil,_ Betsey and Sonny were both standing behind the bar with him. Watching.

Adil felt ice-cold dread flow slowly but persistently into his stomach, as he realised what was about to happen, and there was absolutely nothing he could say to warn Toby, or to make him stop without making it _worse_.

He stubbornly did not let himself react any further with Toby, catching and holding his gaze only accidentally as Toby sipped his drink. Giving up on talking with Adil, and only mostly covering up his disappointment, Toby downed the rest of his drink fairly quickly and passed the glass back, fingers twitching as they came into contact with Adil’s again just barely over the coolness of the glass, offering him one last forlorn look before he headed back over to his family.

Adil did not turn around from the bar for a good few minutes after Toby walked away, his eyes turned down and hand flexing by his side as if Toby longed to reach out to Adil again, as if he would have much preferred to have turned back around and stayed a little longer, but they didn’t _do_ that anymore; Toby’s pained expression in the bar all the more prominent plastered against the all those days he hadn’t been able to see him.

Adil’s breathing was slightly ragged, and he knew there was nothing he could do to keep his face blank now, to push back him emotions, his terror, back to where they could be hidden beneath his breastbone now that Toby had gone, and he had to replace Toby’s glass back on the bar before he had finished cleaning it, for fear of dropping it from how badly his hands shook and the feeling in his fingers became ever more distant.

“Adil?”

Adil winced, any hope that perhaps his, ah, _moment,_ with Toby had flown over their heads dashed in an instant.

Sonny’s voice was low and measured, eyes widening slightly in dawning realisation, a hand raised slightly as if he were talking to a scared animal. His face was just above neutral, concern lacing his eyes as Adil turned to look back at him. Adil had attempted to swallow back his panic as he did so, but the second he met Sonny’s eyes, wide and worried, he felt his face crumple, tears not just pricking the backs of his eyes but already beginning to fall, and he couldn’t face him, couldn’t bear to see, couldn’t bear to _be_ seen, so he did the only thing he could think of…

…and he ran.

…

The cellar was cool and quiet, and if he listened closely Adil could have attempted to distract himself with the sound of running water from the leaky pipe in the next section over.

Adil curled himself up in the darkest corner at the very back, beside the dustiest bottles; wines that hadn’t seen the light of day in decades. His nails ran harshly over his scalp as he tried to bring himself back, tried to keep himself grounded as his breathing became more ragged, bursting out in wrenching sobs that made him shake, burying his face against his knees, as every time he thought he’d convinced himself he’d stopped crying he felt bowled over with a new wave of _something_ that felt just too much _._

“Adil?” Sonny called out to him from the doorway, just out of each other’s line of sight. His voice was that same low and measured tone, pinched slightly higher with his concern. “Is it okay if I come in?”

“No.” Adil scrubbed furiously at his face, well aware that it was puffy and sore from crying, and still struggling to hold off for more than a minute as he spiralled. _Not again, not again._

It didn’t help that this time around, it actually _mattered_ what they thought of him now.

“Adil, honey, we just wanna know that you’re okay,” Betsey called from somewhere behind Sonny.

“I’m fine,” came Adil’s choked up reply, not even remotely convincing, but it could have been enough. If they’d both just been looking for an out.

“Adil _please,_ ” Betsey sounded a step or two closer, desperation leaking into her voice. “I _promise_ it’s okay. Can we please just see you? You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Adil sniffed. Tried to process. It took him a couple of moments but;

“Okay.”

“I’m _sorry,_ ” he whispered as soon as they came into view, not getting up, and unable to look at them properly.

“No, don’t apologise, there’s nothing to be sorry about.” Sonny sat down beside him; had he still been alive their shoulders would have been touching. “I’d hug you if I could.”

Adil sniffed and offered him a watery smile.

“Don’t know that I woulda pegged Toby Hamilton as your type,” Betsey grinned, attempting to lighten the mood as she moved to sit cross-legged in front of the other two. “But to each his own I guess.”

Her smile faltered when she saw Adil’s face crumple again.

“We’re not- I mean not anymore,” he amended at Sonny’s raised eyebrow. “Things were… things happened. And were said. And… so not anymore. But, um.” Adil rubbed at his face with his sleeve again, mentally berating himself for the mess he was making of his uniform. “We- we used to be.” He bit his lip staring down at his lap, not sure if he should have added the last bit.

Sonny and Betsey regarded him for a moment, Betsey reaching out to pat his knee in comfort even though he couldn’t feel it.

“Oh?” Sonny asked, leading but not pressing.

“We got caught, I got blackmailed, then Toby got blackmailed and well… it was just too much.” Adil still refused to look up, so he missed Betsey’s surprised blinking, as if something had fallen into place. “But before…” he trailed off, staring at his lap.

“That wouldn’t have something to do with a certain Mr D’abbervile would it?” Betsey asked cautiously.

Adil’s head snapped up, terror ripping through him all over again. “ _How_ …?”

Beside him, Sonny also lifted his head up in surprise, and he eyed Adil anxiously as his own eyes widened.

“…He haunts his old room. He doesn’t come out very often though.” Sonny glanced over at Betsey for affirmation as he said it, mulling it over. “He likes to… yell. About things, presumably from before he died.”

Betsey nodded. “But if he ever does come out, we can make sure he comes nowhere near you,” she reassured.

Adil swallowed tightly as he nodded, not quite managing to smile at the reassurance.

“I-I should be getting back out there; before someone wonders where I’ve gone.”

“You should probably find somewhere to clean yourself up first,” Betsey grimaced sympathetically, and Adil huffed a laugh, pulling himself to his feet beside them.

“Probably.”

“And Adil?” Betsey called out after him as he headed to the door, causing him to whirl around with a questioning look. “Thank you.”

He managed a smile that time.

…

Adil hadn’t known that Lady Theresa had been invited to the party the night of the bombing. So it was understandable then, that he hadn’t been aware that she’d been caught in the same blast that had killed Betsey, on the far-left side near the stage.

Adil in all likelihood wouldn’t have noticed her at all, if it weren’t for the fact that she was awfully fond of following Toby around the hotel, sitting on the barstool next to him and peering wistfully at his face as he drank. Adil figured it was ridiculous to be jealous of a dead girl, especially when he still hadn’t properly spoken to Toby since the hospital. Told himself he hadn’t wanted to, that he wanted nothing to do with Toby anymore after everything that had happened, the hurt under his ribs corrosive.

But the way Theresa watched him with that flirty grin that Toby couldn’t even see, resting her chin on her hands? That stung. More than Adil wanted to admit.

He probably should have known that she’d catch on though. No one was ever _that_ much of an air-head.

“So! You and Toby?” She bounced up to Adil before the bar opened, grinning conspiratorially, twisting a curl around her finger.

But Adil had rather thought she’d be equally jealous when Theresa figured it out.

“Tell me everything!”

It was nearly impossible to catch a break after that.

But it was nice that he could talk to someone who actually wanted to listen.

“But _why-_ ”

“But _how-_ ”

“Have you _ever-_ ”

Even if it was exhausting sometimes.

“Does that mean that _I’m_ the reason you two even got together?” her faux swoon was designed to tease, even if it was over the top enough to be vaguely nauseating. “Look at me, a regular cupid.”

It was an interesting change of pace, to say the least.

…

There was screaming on the fourth floor. A familiar voice twisted at an unfamiliar pitch, that made Adil’s stomach drop and his heart lodge just above the top of his breastbone, pulsing in the hollow of his throat.

It possibly wasn’t the best idea to follow it, but morbid curiosity snaked through him, and well. He was already on the right floor, having just served drinks to Lady Hamilton’s room. It wouldn’t be difficult, in the literal sense, to investigate.

Horrified curiosity and outright terror had flickered in the back of Adil’s mind since Betsey had mentioned that Mr D’abbervile was still in the hotel. It had left him waking in the dead of night, wide-eyed and throat hoarse with his own fear, and looking over his shoulder, around corners throughout his shift; but he had yet to actually come across his blackmailer since he’d come back to work, and there was a part of him, that self-destructive part of himself, that wanted to know for sure, if only to ease his fear.

Adil placed the serving tray on the floor in the corridor, having taken one last look around to confirm that he was alone. He crept up to Mr D’abbervile’s door, the man’s yelling mostly incoherent; wordless sounds of fury, but for a single name, repeated over and over in a desperate accusation, before fading again to over-sugared words that Adil couldn’t quite catch through the closed door.

_“PRISCILLA!!”_

_“PRISCILLAAAA!!”_

Adil couldn’t quite bring himself to push as the door just yet, instead opting to peer through the keyhole, suddenly unsure if he actually wanted to catch sight of Mr D’abbervile.

_“Priscilla,”_

_“It’s a complicated situation, I didn’t want to worry you,”_

_“it’s just a bit of business I’ve been doing,”_

Adil pushed the door open a handful of centimetres and peered through, Mr D’abbervile’s voice minutely clearer without the heavy wood of the door to stifle it. Though Adil almost wished he could have seen the man’s face, he was grateful that his turned back meant that Mr D’abbervile couldn’t see him.

_“Priscilla, you’re being emotional.”_

Adil winced. But in the back of his mind, something was beginning to click into place. He wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him before that Mr D’abbervile could have been murdered.

_“Look, I don’t know what Toby’s been telling you, but he has his own problems,”_

_“No! That was_ my _way out! No, you put the phone down, Priscilla. Put the phone down!”_

Adil blinked, mind reeling, – _what had Toby said_ – but as Mr D’abbervile stalked closer to the desk he left Adil’s line of sight, and he had to decide if he wanted to crack the door open further to continue watching.

Even in his distraction, Adil couldn’t miss what Mr D’abbervile was saying now, voice loud and hissing, panic bleeding into his words. Adil nearly marvelled at how it all seemed to fall apart around him, Mr D’abbervile reaching out to something, or more likely, someone, hand clenched around something, possibly Lady Hamilton’s throat.

_“Now, I am walking out of here, and you will not do a thing. And do you know why?_

_“Because of Toby!_

_“Even if you continue to willfully ignore the sordid details of your son's wretched private life...”_

Adil swallowed, hands shaking where they clung to the edge of the door. His breathing went ragged. Did she know? He thought back to the night of the bombing, after he and Toby had returned to the hotel, Priscilla running up to her son in tears, whispering apology after apology. How her eyes had locked for a moment on Adil, had sent an apology his way too. _Oh._ He wondered why she hadn’t reported him, if she did know. He wondered if she had said anything to Toby about it all.

_“We’ll hang together by our bloody necks!”_

Adil felt his jaw drop slightly as he watched Mr D’abbervile reel back suddenly, blood flying, as a resounding _thunk_ knocked him back. His shock was evident on his face, even if Adil couldn’t see it. But Adil was not prepared for the following strike to Mr D’abbervile’s head, painfully deliberate in a way the first perhaps hadn’t been, knocking him to the ground, thoroughly dead, skull caved in on one side, blood going _drip, drip, drip,_ but never quite reaching the ground.

When Mr D’abbervile stood, his face was drenched in his own blood, face twisted with shock and fury once more. As if he couldn’t believe, that out of every player in his little game, _Priscilla_ had been his downfall. The one person he’d played so thoroughly from the beginning.

 _“PRISCILLA!!”_ he screamed her name, over and over, pacing the floor of his room like a caged animal. _“PRISCILLAAAA!”_

But that would mean…

It clicked.

_Oh._

Mr D’abbervile suddenly caught sight of Adil in his doorway. His face broke into a terrifying grin, teeth dripping with blood, the sclera of his right eye a bright scarlet, viscous droplets caught in his eyelashes.

_“You.”_

Adil slammed the door shut and ran, only pausing to scoop up the abandoned serving tray in the hallway.

…

Adil should have figured it was only a matter of time before Toby began seeking him out again.

“Adil! I, ah…”

Toby stopped, eyes widening as he took Adil in, and Adil supressed a sigh. It wasn’t that Adil had been avoiding him in the last few days, but Toby had been trying to give Adil the space he thought he needed, seeing as Adil hadn’t seemed all that happy to see him in the bar the other day. He wondered now if perhaps that had been a mistake.

 _Clearly,_ it may have been a touch too much space, because up close, the closest Toby had been to Adil since he’d come back to work, Adil only looked tired. Black-blue eyebags and chapped lips, hands clinging to a days-old tremor. He swayed as he turned back to face Toby.

“Adil?” Toby asked, worry leaking into his voice.

“Yes?” Adil mumbled, staring vaguely at Toby’s shoulder. It looked like an awfully comfortable place to lean. Instead, he turned back towards the bar, the bottle he’d been looking for now clasped tightly in his hands to hide their shaking.

“Adil, please, I-” Toby reached out to him, causing Adil to flinch back.

“Please, I just want to help.” Toby stepped back, clenching his hands back in front of him, shoulders hunched.

“I _don’t_ need you help Toby,” Adil muttered, jaw clenched.

“No, Adil, wait, maybe- hey hang on,” Adil ignored Sonny in favour of heading back out to the bar, overtaking and attempting to block his way past, impossible though that was. “Adil _please_ , you’re allowed to ask for help.”

Adil paused, but remained staring at his feet, tears welling in his eyes. In a gentler voice Sonny continued;

“He wants to help you. I know you guys have history, but- _”_

“I’m _going_ to haunt you for the rest of forever if you don’t start looking after yourself.” Betsey stalked up beside Sonny, frustration very nearly eclipsing her concern.

Adil took a breath, squeezed his eyes shut.

“You aren’t even _real,_ ” he muttered, low enough, and thankfully standing far enough away, that Toby would neither see nor hear him.

Betsey opened her mouth to argue the point, Sonny just barely managing to cut her off.

“That is beside the point right now.”

When Adil opened his eyes again, looking over Sonny’s scarred face, he made a decision. He wasn’t entirely sure it was a good one.

“Adil?” Toby asked, seeing only how Adil had stopped in the middle of the corridor, unmoving, shoulders sagging with something that might have been defeat.

“I’m sorry,” Adil gasped out turning back to Toby. “I’m not fine. And my flat’s a mess, and I’m not sleeping and everything just… and I- I’m sorry,” He stared up at Toby’s scared expression, misinterpreting it, hands wringing fitfully at the neck of the bottle. “I’m sorry, I have to get back to work.”

“Adil…”

“ _Please._ ”

Toby stared helplessly as Adil walked back out to the bar, shoulders set. The door swung shut behind him with a stilted thud, Toby falling back against the shelves with equal amounts of resignation and frustration.

Betsey and Sonny eyed him with something akin to curiosity before glance back at each other.

“So close.” Betsey muttered under her breath.

…

Adil briefly considered that, perhaps, he should stop offering to cover room service in between his bar shifts.

Mr D’abbervile’s yelling was incessant; wordless when it wasn’t repetitive, a mess of shock and fury and hate that drifted out the windows and doors; drifted crudely through the vents, consistently catching Adil off guard. The sound of his voice made him flinch back unconsciously – there had been more than one occasion where he’d fumbled the tray, sure that he was right behind him, or at least nearby enough.

But when he went quiet, well. It felt as if Mr D’abbervile was around every corner, waiting with a cruel and pleasant smile, a handful of threats in exchange for a handful of secrets.

It was foolish. The man was too disbelieving about his own death to ever leave his room 95% of the time. And the other 5%...

He appeared at the top of the staff stairs as Adil exited the guest room, the look on his face dark and threatening, yet he stayed put, as yet unclear who he was waiting for until he caught sight of Adil. His face broke into a cold smile, revealing blood-stained teeth, as he leant back further on the railing. As if he were waiting for Adil to come to him.

Mr D’abbervile’s face was perpetually caved in and stained with blood, the fact that he couldn’t come to terms with his death leaving him unable to control his appearance alongside his fury. It left Adil feeling like something icy had slid into his gut and curled up around his intestines, knocking about stomach until it rolled with nausea. The thought of Mr D’abbervile _talking_ to him, after so long, was quite possibly the most and only terrifying concept that he could conjure up in his mind in that moment.

“ _You._ ”

The voice came from over Adil’s shoulder, and Mr D’abbervile blinked in something akin to surprise even as his face twisted in distaste.

Lawrence Hamilton stalked past Adil without acknowledging him, eyes locked on Lucien.

Mr D’abbervile opened his mouth as if to reply, but he never got the chance, Lawrence grabbing him around his tie; fingers caught in his collar and buttons. He didn’t quite manage to lift him off his feet, and Adil thought perhaps words might have been exchanged between them before Lawrence moved as if to essentially throw Mr D’abbervile down the stairs.

Lucien gifted Lawrence his own personal feral smile; blood-stained and wide-eyed, as he grabbed the old lord and dragged him down with him. Both men screamed furiously at each other; Lawrence’s hand sliding up to catch the other man around the throat, as they both tumbled down the first flight of stairs. Adil cautiously crept up to the top of the stairs himself in morbid curiosity just in time to catch a final glimpse of both men before Lord Hamilton dragged both of them over the railing, leaving them to freefall all the way down to the basement. Still screaming furiously at each other the entire was down.

Creeping down to that same railing, Adil peered over, but the pair had disappeared before they had hit the ground. In fact, if he listened closely, he could have heard Mr D’abbervile in his room again once more; Lawrence was likely already heading back down to the bar from his room.

Adil blinked, the swallowed around his now dissipating panic. Retrieving the room service tray from where he’d dropped, unnoticed, Adil continued downstairs, and carried on with his day untroubled.

…

“Look at that. I’m dead for how many fucking weeks? And everything goes to shit.”

“What are you talking about now?” Sonny shot Adil a perplexed look over Betsey’s head.

“Emma and Freddie!”

“You don’t like Freddie?”

“Not after that shit he pulled in September. I ought to’ve broken his nose for that.”

“… Might not have gone over well with the rest of the Hamiltons. Or the Garlands for that matter.”

Betsey huffed. “Look, I might’ve been fine with it if Freddie hadn’t been such as arse about her going out with Joe. He has no right acting so territorial. And _honestly,_ I thought Emma might be better than that…” she sighed. “Although I _knew_ she wasn’t being honest when she said she was over him.”

Betsey glanced over at Adil and Toby, the pair both watching the other, and pretending they weren’t.

“Although I suppose it could be worse,” she muttered rolling her eyes. “Oi Adil! Maybe try talking to the man, huh?”

…

“ _-My wife!”_

_“You’re just mad that she liked it better when I-”_

Adil didn’t even blink as he watched old Lord Hamilton tackle Mr D’abbervile down the lift shaft. The pair likely fell straight through the lift itself; reappearing back in their rooms before they hit the ground, as usual, already prepping to start over again.

“Hello Mr Joshi! Feeling better today?” Lawrence called out as they both reappeared in the hallway instead, and Lucien punched him in the stomach causing Lawrence to double over, gasping despite the fact that he didn’t actually breathe anymore.

Lawrence returned the favour tenfold by pushing Mr D’abbervile out the nearest window like a vaguely unimpressed cat.

Adil nodded, still staring at the window. Honestly, watching Mr D’abbervile falling multiple floors was always a sure-fire way to make his day better, even if Lucien didn’t make it to the ground, or sustain any actual harm, _especially_ when it happened before the man had a chance to acknowledge that Adil was there.

“Good to hear.” Lawrence then vanished back upstairs, lying in wait for the other ghost to come back.

…

Once Billy showed Betsey how to fiddle around with the electrics, it was all but over for every man or woman who walked into the Halcyon for the singer’s position. As infuriating as it must have been for Mr Garland, who now had an increasingly irritated Lady Hamilton to contend with on the matter, it had been an awfully entertaining, if predictable, way to pass the beginning of a shift in the two hours before the bar actually opened. So much so, that many of the other ghosts had begun to take seats around the bar to watch, old Lord Hamilton occasionally stopping by to stare mournfully at a glass of scotch he couldn’t drink.

“She’s awfully pretty, isn’t she?” Theresa stared wistfully at the latest would-be singer as she stepped up onto the stage and tossed lacquered blonde curls over her shoulder with a carefully painted smile. Theresa rested her chin heavily on her hand as she leant back against the bar with a glance at Adil.

Adil offered an amused grimace in response, eyebrows raising slightly towards his hairline as he replaced a now cleaned glass and retrieved the next one.

“I suppose,” he replied, his neutral tone only betrayed by the way his grimace relaxed into a small smile as Theresa grinned back at him.

“You suppose… you’re the wrong person to ask? Okay, what about him, he’s sort of alright, isn’t he?” The blonde singer stepped off the stage with a smug smile that only broke when Betsey glared at the hem of her dress, causing her to trip, even as she managed to save herself from any real harm. Theresa glared harshly at her as Sonny and Adil attempted to smother their laughter, the next singer a thin man in a well-tailored suit and a bright-white smile.

“Not my type,” Adil muttered to Theresa between stifled giggles.

“No… I don’t think he’s mine either.” Bizarrely, Theresa seemed somewhat reassured by Adil’s answer.

“I don’t like him either- oh _no,_ get him away from the piano!”

“What’s with you and the piano Bets? They need a new player too, or we’re never going to get any live music back in here.” Sonny leant back against the staff door behind Adil, content to watch the goings on from over Adil’s shoulder.

Betsey looked back at them both, staring sadly at Sonny.

“Because it’s _your_ piano.”

Adil felt a pang in his chest at that, staring intently down at the glass in his hands, the cut glass slipping out of focus as he clenched his jaw around the rising emotion in his throat.

It was easy to forget, sometimes, that the rest of the hotel was beginning to move on from the deaths of his friends; slowly but surely replacing their carved-out spaces in the hotel and replacing them with something new. Adil wondered idly, if it weren’t for his, ah, _predicament,_ if he’d have begun filling up those spaces too; only taking out memories late at night to peer over to grieve and wonder at.

“Not any more Bets.”

The two stared back at each other, Sonny with a sort of resigned sadness, Betsey’s shoulders sagging as the fight walked away from her, leaving her blinking back tears.

“Okay, but I think we can agree that he really is rubbish, so maybe you should mess up his audition too Betsey, before Mr Garland thinks that him finally hosting a successful audition is some kind of sign.” Theresa piped up, her hands folded in her lap, a smile stretched thinly across her face.

Betsey choked out a laugh, and promptly blew the fuse on the microphone.

…

“So! How do blowjobs work?”

Adil just barely managed not to drop the crate he was carrying, but it was a near thing, and for a moment he almost expected the feeling of broken glass and expensive alcohol against the hems of his trousers as he fumbled the crate, eyes widened incredulously as Theresa.

“Excuse me?”

“ _Well,_ ” She began in a needling voice and an air-headed giggle. “I just _figured,_ that out of everyone I could ask, _you’d_ probably actually have some sort of… experience.”

“That’s absolutely none of your business.” Adil hiked the crate a little higher on his hip, poorly attempting to hide how flustered he was. He turned away from her, and headed back out to the bar, not looking back at her.

Theresa pouted. “Oh, you’re no _fun_ ,” she called after him.

…

There were times though, when Mr D’abbervile came out of his room, when Lawrence was distracted with something else, but usually Betsey and Sonny, or at the very least Theresa, were around to tell him to piss off. This was not one of those times.

It was short and sweet, in a manner of speaking. Mr D’abbervile left Adil slumped against the shelves in the otherwise cellar, painfully familiar, that blood-soaked smile branded in his mind. Adil felt himself slide down the shelves, very, very slowly. He didn’t cry. But the numbness was pervasive, and it trickled through him in increments, fingers and toes almost stinging with pins and needles. He was aware, distantly, that he needed to get up, finish cleaning up for the end of his shift; go home. Rinse and repeat.

The thought of coming back tomorrow was like a heavy weight on his shoulders. The thought of going out to the bar, and facing the world at that moment, felt like a dull knife under his ribs.

What hurt most, was the fact that it didn’t even matter what Mr D’abbervile has said to him. He could have stood there and breathed heavily in Adil’s direction for all it mattered. Adil’s mind was more than capable of supplying words for Mr D’abbervile. _Mr D’abbervile_ had once been rather good at subtly picking apart your fears and handing them back to you with a smile and an offer.

The other barman took one look at Adil, and told him he could leave now, if he wanted, that he’d cover the last ten minutes of his shift, if he wanted.

Adil didn’t go home.

Instead, he walked to the staff stairs, and began to climb.

…

The world felt unbelievably far away, from the roof.

The roar of traffic was presumably still there, Lords with their Rolls and Bentleys pulling up in front of the hotel, paperboys yelling on every corner, the breeze carrying their voices down the street, but apparently not _up._ It felt rather like being in a bubble, soundless and timeless. Invisible.

“That’s an awfully long way down if you fall,” came a voice from behind Adil, Lawrence Hamilton, appearing out of nothing.

Adil remained where he was, leaning on the raised lip of the roof, motionless. He wasn’t sure he cared what Lawrence Hamilton thought, especially in regards to him. He turned back to the street, noticing idly that there was now a large crow calling out to the passers-by from the gates of the Halcyon.

“You know,” Lord Hamilton continued, “If you die here, you’re going to be trapped inside the hotel with the rest of us, for a while at least. Including Mr D’abbervile.” The old lord eyed Adil with idle concern, reaching out a hand to Adil, as if to grasp him by his collar to steady him. His hand passed straight through him, Adil not even feeling it. “Oh,” Lord Hamilton muttered, benign smile falling away. “You really have thought about it. Rather a lot too, I would think.”

“What would you know about anything?” Adil’s face remained blank, eyes dark and unseeing. His hands rested on the top of the wall, still, like they hadn’t been in days.

“Not much. But. Perhaps more than you think,” Lawrence responded, cautiously. “You have to stop this.” His voice now serious as he stepped up beside Adil. “If you die, especially like this, _he_ wins. And after everything he’s done, are you really going to give him that sort of satisfaction _now_? _I_ refuse to let that happen.”

Adil’s hands started to shake again, and he finally looked over at Lawrence, resolve starting to crumble incrementally. “That’s not really up to you.”

Nevertheless, Lawrence’s hand was finally able to grasp the back of Adil’s jacket, pulling him back from the edge of roof. Adil fell back through the rest of the old lord, landing heavily on his back. He laid there for a moment not moving, maybe thinking, maybe still stuck in that bubble. Lawrence stood above him, attempting to hide a wince at the heavy way Adil had landed.

When Lawrence realised that Adil wasn’t going to move again anytime soon, he lent himself back against the wall again, watching him with curious concern.

“I didn’t want to approve. Of you and Toby.” He added by way of explanation. “Actually, I didn’t want to approve of most of the things Toby’s done… _but,_ no don’t look at me like that, I have a point.” He sighed. “But those months after I died, before Mr D’abbervile properly got involved? I have _never_ seen my family so happy. Especially Toby. And if I had been alive, I doubt I would have been made aware of any of it at all.” Lawrence’s fingers began rubbing together idly, as if wishfully rolling at a cigarette that wasn’t there. “And I don’t ever want to be thought of as as bad, or heaven forbid, _worse,_ than Lucien. So, you figure yourself out Mr Joshi, and don’t you _dare_ die. And I’ll keep trying to keep Mr D’abbervile in check.”

With that, he reached out to Adil again, pulling him up to his feet.

…

In the corridor, Theresa was waiting for him. Lord Hamilton made a slightly amused face, as if wishing Adil luck. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it all.

Before Lawrence could disappear again, Mr D’abbervile’s ever-persistent presence appeared further down the hallway, his head still caved in at the temple and blood running down his face, but never quite managing to reach the floor despite the persistent way it dripped, as always. His face curled into a snarl when he spotted them, and Adil flinched violently, stepping back behind Theresa.

“Oh, for _Heaven’s_ sake…” muttered Lawrence under his breath. He was caught mid eye-roll as Lucien crash tackled him out the window.

Adil blinked, somehow still perplexed by the sheer speed the two older men always seemed to take each other out at. He glanced over at Theresa, who looked equally surprised, although slightly more impressed by the whole thing. Out the window, both ghosts had disappeared well before they reached the ground; Lucien could now once again be heard calling out in fury and shock in the east wing. Adil imagined Lawrence was in a similar state, if significantly quieter, of collapse in the Royal Suite.

“So!” Began Theresa, bubbly as ever, and Adil began feeling himself slipping out of the moment already. “I think I’ve worked out how to convince Toby that I’m really here, I’ve been leaving him notes around his room, and this morning I actually tried talking to him by writing in the condensation on his mirror, after he’d gotten dressed, of _course_ , I’m not _completely_ without boundaries…”

Adil could only just bring himself to pay the slightest amount of attention to her. Which wasn’t fair really, Theresa had been perhaps the keenest on his and Toby’s relationship, and however irritating she could get, it was nice that he didn’t have to explain or justify their relationship, past or present, to her.

Even if she was rather too keen about certain details.

“…and I _know,_ even though I didn’t try and write to him until he was dressed, I must confess, I _did_ go into his bathroom a bit before he got out of the bath. I know, I know, I _really_ shouldn’t have, he’s _your_ fella and all, but, oh, I am sorry Adil, he’d just very nice to look at, and you _really_ get no idea what his body is like under such terribly unfitting suits and oh! Here we are!”

Adil blinked, suddenly aware of the familiar corridor, his heart sinking slightly at Theresa’s grin.

“ _Aaaand_ look at that, there’s Toby, what a coincidence. See you later Adil!” Theresa called out over her shoulder, the barest hint of concern and relief entering her expression for the first time, making Adil think, perhaps, Theresa was a little more aware than he’d thought.

_However;_

“Tess-” he hissed, stopping himself short at Toby’s bemused expression. “S-sorry.”

“I feel like I say this a lot, but you look awful,” Toby smiled hopefully, opening the door further in invitation, chewing his lip like he thought Adil might refuse and was already preparing himself for disappointment.

“I thought you were just leaving?”

“No… actually I’m not sure why I got up.” Toby blinked in confusion before he shrugged. _Theresa…_ thought Adil wryly. He still hadn’t worked out how she did it. “I thought you would have finished your shift a few hours ago?”

“I did.” Adil’s voice remained flat and empty, but he entered Toby’s room regardless, if a little mechanically. Theresa had obviously thought it was a good idea. Not that she was exactly full of the best ideas all that often.

Toby raised an eyebrow, questioningly but not pressing, and tried, poorly, to hide his concern.

Adil leant back against the now closed door heavily, letting his eyes flutter shut, trying to summon anything akin to relief at having four walls and a closed door between himself and the rest of the world, and still finding himself coming up short. Toby, for his part, hung back awkwardly, unsure what to do with himself now that Adil was in his room again for the first time since before his attempted suicide.

Opening his eyes again, Adil stared tiredly at Toby’s clothed chest and thought about how nice it might be to rest his head against it for a moment. A second, a pause; one that might allow him to catch his breath, ground himself, steady himself.

He thought idly about how Lawrence Hamilton had basically asked him to survive out of spite. Adil absently thought that it probably wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever had, but having said that, Lord Hamilton did have _quite_ the history, which rather mean that the bar was set fairly low in that regard.

“I didn’t want to go home.” It was all Adil could offer him, still staring unseeing at Toby’s shoulders. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” Toby leaning back slightly, raising his hands in a placating gesture, before allowing them to fall back together, fingers linking and unlinking nervously. “What _do_ you want though Adil?”

And wasn’t that just the question? What _did_ he want? Lifting his gaze incrementally to meet Toby’s, Adil couldn’t bear to do more than stare, hours-worth of thoughts racing through his mind at once, attempting, but not necessarily succeeding in chasing away the fog in his mind.

Toby sighed, running his fingers through his hair until his fringe fell into his eyes in messy curls that caught around his fingers.

“Why here, why me?” Toby had his own dark circles bruising around his eyes, one too many late nights and hamster-wheel thought circuits. “I thought you were avoiding me again.”

Adil snorted, and wondered if he should mention Lady Theresa.

“Because you’re literally the only living person I can talk to about _any_ of this. Do you really think we’d have gotten into this mess, this _disaster,_ if either of us had been able to talk to other people about it?” Adil slumped back against the door again, tears beginning to prick at his eyes. “Toby, where else am I meant to go?”

Toby reached out and tugged at his arm until Adil fell bonelessly into Toby’s chest. It was almost as nice as he’d thought it would be, Toby’s arms circling around him almost making him feel safe. He buried his face under Toby’s chin, and suddenly, no longer able to look each other in the eye, it became that much easier to _talk_.

“I wanted to step off the roof,” he whispered to Toby’s collar. He felt Toby suck in a breath, felt him tighten his arms around him, as if that could stop him from wanting to again. “I wanted to, I wasn’t actually going to, I promise, but then…” Adil gasped out a laugh, nothing about it at all amused.

“Tell me in the morning?” Toby asked after a pause, when it became clear that Adil wasn’t going to continue, tucking his nose against the crown of Adil’s head, eyes closed.

“Okay.” Adil tried not to immediately think about the implications of the question.

“I lov-”

Adil launched himself up at Toby, covering his mouth with his own in an angry and bruising kiss, the best and only way he knew how to completely shut Toby up.

“Don’t say it.” He gasps out when he pulls back, millimetres between their faces. “Don’t say it, not like that. You only ever say it when I’m dying.”

“Okay,” Toby whispered, staring at Adil with wide eyes. Bracing himself, Toby repeated the word, more to himself than before. He nodded, again more to himself than Adil, pulling himself back, and Adil couldn’t help but wince as he watched as Toby put up all his barriers again. He hadn’t even noticed they’d come down.

“Okay,” Toby said again, stepping back once more. “I was going to keep working for a bit, but what if you stayed here tonight? I’ll keep my distance,” he added, misinterpreting Adil’s pained look. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman. Practically boring. We can build a wall between us on the bed out of pillows even, if you like.”

Adil huffed quietly, but the offer did seem terribly inviting after the day he’d had. He offered Toby the closest thing to a smile he could manage, and nodded at him as he began making attempts at wiping the tears from his face.

Onward and upward and all that.

…

Adil stood in Toby’s en suite, borrowed pyjamas hanging long past his hands and bunching up around his ankles. If he looked closely enough, Adil thought he could see where Theresa had been writing on the mirror to Toby earlier. He grimaced at the few words he could make out, _‘sex’_ unfortunately making more than one appearance, and whilst Adil winced on Toby’s behalf, Adil couldn’t help but hope that Toby hadn’t offered Theresa up any information in that regard; he hardly needed more fuel for her invasive questions.

“ _Am_ I allowed to say that you look completely ridiculous in those.” Toby leant back against the doorframe and tried not to show his nervousness. “It’s still a very cute look though.”

“Shut up.”

“Adorable. You’ve never looked so tiny.”

“It’s not my fault all your clothes are all too big for _you._ I never stood a chance.” Adil pouted, falling almost too easily into their old back-and-forth, and trying vainly not to have a crisis over Toby calling him _cute._

“Teeny tiny. Practically pocket-sized. I could stick you in my jacket next to my lighter and carry you to work tomorrow.” Toby’s smile finally eased fully onto his face as Adil’s response.

“Mr Garland might have a _few_ issues with me missing my shift tomorrow if you do that.”

Toby only hummed happily in response, watching Adil closely and pretending he wasn’t while Adil fought a yawn.

“The bed’s all yours for the moment if you want it,” Toby offered, still smiling.

Adil hesitated.

“Unless… you wanted the floor? Or the chair?” Toby eyed the pyjamas again, raising an eyebrow.

Adil sighed, stifling another yawn. “Okay.”

…

The silence between them was comfortable, broken only by the scratch of Toby’s pen on paper as he continued working, and the rustle of the sheets as Adil made himself comfortable on one side, curled up small with the blankets hugged to his chest, watching Toby.

That wasn’t to say that Adil didn’t notice that Toby was clearly hyperaware of having him nearby. Toby had managed to sit sideways in his chair, using the back as an armrest even as he still managed to hunch over whatever it was he was working on. His eyes drifted back to the bed every few moments, as if checking Adil was still there, like he still couldn’t believe he had come at all; that awkwardness from when Adil had first arrived reset in the line of his back, yet still more relaxed than he had been, knowing that Adil was in his line of sight, and that he was safe.

“Are you actually getting any work done,” Adil queried, tilting his chin back against the pillows as Toby’s eyes got caught on him again.

“Technically, yes.” Toby leant back further in the chair in an attempt to face Adil properly.

Adil raised an eyebrow, hiding a tired but amused smile under the edge of the blanket, still watching Toby. He almost asked what he was working on, but stopped before he even opened his mouth, face falling slightly. He hoped Toby didn’t notice.

Toby reached his arms up behind his head to stretch, his back letting out more than one _crack_ as he did so, and let out a contented sigh.

“I might finish up here soon though,” he murmured, watching Adil closely.

Adil had to roll over to continue watching Toby, confused when he headed to the wardrobe and began pulling out pillows, tossing them carelessly towards the end of the bed.

“How… I didn’t realise you were serious about that.” Adil pulled himself to a sitting position, blankets falling to around his waist, Toby’s too big pyjama shirt gaping at his chest.

Toby hesitated. “I can… put them back?” he sounded hopeful enough to make Adil wince.

Adil clenched his nails into the meat of his palm under the blankets, not looking at Toby.

It was ridiculous, really. He was already in Toby’s bed, in Toby’s pyjamas, what more could one more thing be on top of that? They were already compromised if someone were to see them now. But, taking into account that _yesterday_ they’d been barely on speaking terms, it felt like that much more of a jump, far, _far,_ more than Adil would have permitted himself to even consider _wanting,_ even as recently as earlier that morning. The thought of having Toby that close, felt unbearably like Before, before everything had gone wrong, making Adil feel like they were almost, if not for that last lingering bit of tension, like they were skimming over everything that had happened between them without further acknowledging it, and it made Adil feel like he was suffocating all over again.

Adil blinked at the realisation.

“I just thought… Well, Freddie and I used to do this when we were little. Stack pillows and blankets together. And I, um… I don’t know if I. If…” Toby trailed off, clutching one last pillow in his hands, closely inspecting the paisley print on the cover.

_Oh._

So it was the same for Toby too.

Adil attempted a tiny smile, reaching out for the pillows on the bed.

“That sounds like it would have been fun,” he offered, placing it back down beside him, reaching again for another.

Toby smiled. “Was just a bit silly really.”

It took another moment for Toby to move though, still lost in thought as he watched Adil, who was now seriously contemplating flopping back down against the mattress and just letting Toby set things up how he wanted. He really was very, _very_ tired.

“I, ah, I need to get changed, but I’ll just be a moment?” Toby had fallen back slightly against the wardrobe as he’d been thinking, the door knob jabbing him in the back seemingly startling him back to reality.

“Okay.” Adil bit his lip as Toby turned away towards the bathroom, lying back down. He pulled the covers up over his head, not sure what he was meant to be feeling, knowing only that he was feeling a lot of it.

…

When Adil woke the next morning, he found that he’d somehow managed to curl into himself in the middle of the bed, searching out Toby’s warmth in his sleep.

The pillows that they’d half-heartedly stacked between them had been thrown every which way by Toby, as he often tossed and turned relentlessly when apparently sleeping on his own; now sprawled in the middle of the bed too. Arms and legs pulled Adil against his chest, fingers curled into the too big pyjama shirt and lightly brushing over the bared skin of his waist where the shirt and ridden up, finally still. He sighed contentedly in his sleep as Adil laid wide eyed, still as he could stand to be, as he contemplated what to do with himself.

Holding his breath, Adil slowly but surely tried to extract himself from Toby’s clinging limbs without ending up sitting directly on his stomach. Giving up for the most part as his movement caused Toby to tighten his grip unconsciously, Adil pulled himself up to a sitting position, Toby’s arms still holding on even as his leg slipped down from where it was tossed over his hip, causing Toby to frown in his sleep. Adil tried hard not to soften at the sweetness of it, and he felt a little more of his bitterness loosening from where it had taken root in his gut.

Adil sighed. He shouldn’t stay, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to break the bubble just yet, this feeling of being surrounded by Toby, safe and secret, like being tucked away in someone’s pocket. He didn’t want to think about his next shift yet, didn’t want to think about how he really, _really,_ couldn’t bring himself to let go of the hurt that he and Toby had caused each other, even as it only ever seemed to be hurting him more, even if, if he thought about it, he had definitely already forgiven Toby, could hardly have refused him, even if that hurt him more too.

He ran his fingers through Toby’s hair as he slept, quietly marvelling as he always did at the way it curled as he worked the slick out of the strands, and the way Toby hummed happily at the contact. Adil could have cried for it all; for the way his head wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t let him just enjoy the moment, or more so that he couldn’t bring himself to let Toby see that he could almost see something edging on contentment edging into his peripheral, if he could only have kept that _thing_ in his head quiet.

“You’re lucky you know.”

Billy seemingly appeared out of nowhere, as he was wont to do, but what startled Adil most from where he had started to slip away from reality, was the fact that the younger boy had left the offices.

Adil raised an eyebrow at him, eyes still dulled, gesturing at Toby as if to indicate _don’t let me wake him_ , Toby himself only tightening his grip again as he felt Adil shift against him.

“I know, you don’t have t’say anything though. It’s just that… I know you’ve been through it, really, but it’s just that, _you_ got to have a second chance at… everythin’,” he gestured to Toby. “and it’s like y’don’t even wan’ it. And it’s just… I didn’t want to die. I weren’t ready. I’m still not. And that morning I died, I was meant to meet with Kate, and we were gonna to share an orange, an’ it was a date, well I think it were anyway, and I was so excited for it. And I really think she was too, because she waited for _hours_ for me… she must’ve thought terrible things ‘bout me while she was waiting.

“And I’d’ve given anything to ‘ave had that chance, to actually ‘ave gotten a chance to have spent time with her, even if we’d just gotten that morning. And you, I know you’re not really sure if you want to still be here at the moment… uh, yeah, I dunno, I can sorta sense it?” Billy looked confused for a second and Adil’s equally confused blinking. “But you get another shot with him, and I don’t understand why you’re wasting it. D’abbervile’s dead, you’re about as free as you’re gonna get.”

Billy’s shoulder sagged in defeat, but he offered Adil a small smile before he vanished back into nothing.

Adil felt Toby stir against his hip, could almost have pinpointed the exact moment he fully awoke. Toby went still against him; took stock of the way his arms circled Adil’s waist, fingers wound through fabric where they had been flexing in his sleep. Adil was acutely aware of the fact that Toby was holding his breath, and he stared down at Toby’s wide eyes; bit his lip as Toby’s eyes met his and took note of the fact that Adil’s hand was still curled in Toby’s hair.

_Caught._

It took a moment for either of them to move again; neither wanted to burst the bubble and acknowledge what they were doing, had done, and yet both recognising the familiarity, that comforting bubble; spiralling back into old habits quite by accident in their sleep, completely without their permission, and neither were all that sure what to do with themselves now it had happened.

_A second chance._

Adil resumed stroking through Toby’s hair. Toby’s eyes fluttered shut at the contact, and Adil felt him go limp against his side once more as he leaned into the contact contentedly.

“Toby…” Adil swallowed nervously but didn’t look away. It wasn’t a harsh stare; softened as it was by the set of his shoulders, the way his eyes started to glaze back over as he slipped back into his own head quite without his permission as he contemplated how to go about asking. “Toby, why did you say those things to me. On that- before the bombing?”

Toby blinked, as if waking up all over again, tensing up again once more, but this time tightening his grip instead of merely maintaining it.

“I was lying.” Desperation leaked into Toby’s voice as he pulled himself beside him, stubbornly not pulling back, arms slipping back from Adil’s waist to interlock their fingers.

“You said that before. I want to know _why._ ” Adil clenched his jaw as his voice broke on the last word, staring down at their hands, flexing fingers trying to hold onto the hurt before he let it slip out.

Toby swallowed, watching Adil carefully but not making eye contact. “I…” chewing viciously at his lip, Toby tried not to think too hard about what he’s said; most of that night had been regressed to a blur of fear and hurt anyway, to the point where he couldn’t quite recall precisely what he’d said, that night in his room, just knowing that he’d wanted to hurt him, drive him away, any way he could, any way he was sure would work. Sometimes, letting someone know you that completely, was too much to offer. 

Adil however, could feel himself slipping further away, Toby’s words looping through his mind, distorting themselves and slicing through him like ragged glass. He tightened him grip on Toby’s hands, and tried not to look away. Toby squeezed back, mulling over what to say.

“I didn’t want to steal for _him_ anymore. So, I, ah, I called the police. Left them a tip off. But I needed you to… to not be here when they got here. And to stay gone so they couldn’t find you if Mr D’abbervile mentioned you to them. I just…” ducking his head, Toby ran his teeth harshly over his lip again, felt the days old splits open back up again, bloodless and ragged, as he resisted the urge to clench his nails into the meat of his palm; Adil’s hands still tangled in his own. “I just wanted to keep you _safe._ And I messed it up and took it too far and I’m _sorry._ ” The last bit came out as a broken breathless whisper, and Toby swallowed around the tears he could feel building up behind his eyes. This wasn’t about him. And he wasn’t going to make it about him.

Adil watched carefully, grounded by the warmth of Toby’s palms against his own, the way his hands clenched and unclenched unconsciously around his own fingers, yet stilled before nails could graze knuckles.

“You’re an idiot.” He deadpanned, mouth curling up on one side even as tears pricked his eyes and caught hold of his eyelashes.

Toby huffed a laugh, retrieving one of his hands to run his sleeve over his face, eyes damp. “Probably.”

“And what were you going to do when he mentioned _you_ to MI5?” Adil shook his head at Toby incredulously.

Toby shrugged. “I… didn’t really think that far ahead. It didn’t really matter at the time, I suppose.” He stared down intently at Adil’s hands as the words left him, little more than a hoarse whisper, taking note of the split knuckles and tattered cuticles, crescent-shaped bruises on the backs of Adil’s hands where he hadn’t quite managed to break the skin.

_Grounding._

Adil shook his head at Toby again, tugging on his hands as if that could have made him see reason or change his mind but well… it wasn’t like his mindset had resembled anything that could have been described as _better_ at the time. But it felt far beyond surreal to hear it from another person compared to himself.

Toby chewed his lip, tonguing at the small beads of blood that had begun to form on each broken slit. He wanted to ask. But.

Always but.

It was a fragile sort of acceptance that he’d come to terms with since that night. It was as if, after what _he’d_ done in return, everything that Adil had done had been forced away; out of sight and out of mind, because there was _nothing_ he would do, that would make him risk Adil again. If the first suicide attempt was his fault, then he didn’t dare risk a second.

And yet.

He just wanted to know _why._ Wasn’t that the same? That same burning need to understand that maybe his own assumptions were wrong; _they must have been,_ because Adil’s reaction to him finding out hadn’t matched up to what Toby had pictured and assumed, his own insecurities obliterating any chance of _waiting_ for an explanation even as he’d heard Adil beg and plead, heard him begin to offer an explanation, _or maybe it was just an excuse,_ but he’d wasted his chance, and then he’d shut down every other chance before it could happen, and now it felt terrifyingly like his chances were up.

It felt rather like his insides were full of white ants, gnawing away at his insides, chewing them up and leaving his full of holes and on the verge of collapse.

“What?” asked Adil, desperation and confusion leaking into his voice even as he attempted to offer a smile.

Toby bit his lip again, Adil frowning at how it caused the blood to begin flowing out of the cut.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were being threatened in the first place?”

Adil felt himself shrivel up under Toby’s desperate and hurt stare. His shoulders tensed and hunched up around his ears, and he almost considered not answering; pulling his hands back and curling up under the blankets, like a child hiding from a nightmare, because;

“I don’t know.” It was all he could offer in that moment. It couldn’t possibly be enough.

Toby’s shoulders sagged, Adil very nearly sitting back and watching as Toby shut himself away again, very nearly letting Toby untangle their fingers and disappear across the room, but,

“I was scared. And I didn’t- _don’t_ know that I was worth _any_ sort of trouble to you, and it was selfish, but I didn’t want you to leave as soon as I told you, and I’m sorry too. I’ll never stop being sorry for hurting you.” It came out in a rush, breathless and damp with tears, reaching out to Toby before he could retreat.

“I wouldn’t have…” Toby’s eyes were wide as he absorbed everything he said, but Adil wasn’t done yet.

“But you _did,”_ Adil stared helplessly up at him, and Toby looked away, tears caught in his eyelashes. _“_ And if I’d been the only person I was risking, I _never_ would have done it, please Toby, but my family, I,” he choked on a sob, retrieving one hand to rub at his face again. “If I get outed,” he started, slower this time. “It’s not just _me_ who gets hurt. My parents, my sister; they’ll all get deported too, and they wouldn’t even know _why,_ at least at first, but it would be because of _me. My_ mistake. And it would mean my brother would be left here on his own, and I _couldn’t_ do that to them. I’m _sorry_.”

Toby regarded him with a pained expression, tears falling slowly down his face.

“Okay.” He whispered. He untangled the one hand still holding onto Adil’s and slid them up his arms, watching him carefully as he did so. He settled his hands on either side of Adil’s jaw, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Adil’s, tears still running down each of their faces.

Adil could only watch him, something between terror and awe painted across his face. He felt his eyes screw shut at the familiarity of having Toby’s hands on the back of his neck, on his face, of having him close enough to breathe the same air, letting out a broken sob as Toby leant against him.

“I’m so sorry,” Toby whispered, tracing his cheekbones, eyes squeezed shut like that could have held back his tears. “For everything.”

“ _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”_

“We’ll be okay now though, won’t we?”

Adil nodded raggedly, clinging to where Toby held him.

“We’ll be okay.”

…

It didn’t hurt so much anymore, seeing Toby in the bar now. Letting him watch him, letting him run his fingers over his own as Adil passed him a drink.

It barely hurt to see him at all

…

That didn’t mean there weren't days where it still felt impossibly hard to be around people. Days where it felt like his thoughts were sliding sideways, twisting themselves into a mess in his brain that felt impossible to untangle.

Adil clenched his nails into the meat of his palm and leant back against the shelves of the corridor. Emotions running high, yet parallel to himself, unable to quite touch them even as they raced through his veins up into his heart leaving it racing thrilled and ill. Adil felt himself slipping, the crescent soon-to-be bruises not enough to keep him grounded, and he couldn’t even work out _why_.

Adil bit down hard on the first two knuckles of his left hand, the other reaching around and clenching over his elbow, breathing just barely holding at steady, but as he felt the skin split beneath his teeth the sting became enough to keep him from disappearing into his own mind and leaving him swaying on the spot, otherwise motionless for however long it took for someone to find him.

“You keep doin’ that, and I’ll dob ya in t’ Mr Garland.” Billy stepped out from behind the boiler, flicking shut the fuse box as he went. He offered Adil an anxious smile as he watched the small beads of blood form along the splits. “That’ll sting like a bitch when you’re mixing drinks later.”

Adil shrugged, curling his hand just below his chin, cradling it against his throat. His other hand remained where it was, nails attempting, but not necessarily succeeding, at digging into the flesh below his sleeve.

“How exactly are you going to do that?” Adil croaked out, attempting his own smile.

“I’ll ask Theresa to show me how ta write him a note. She’s gotten awfully good at ‘em ya know.”

“…I can imagine,” Adil grimaced.

“Back to work then?”

Adil nodded. He grabbed the stock he’d feigned needing to replace, and followed Billy back out of the cellar.

The power was out for a good four hours before someone managed to work out what Billy had done to the fuse box.

…

“Do you ever wonder what happened to Mr D’abbervile?” Toby asked quietly as Adil handed him another drink. The bar was still mostly empty, even Joe electing to work somewhere else for the time being. “It’s just that I don’t think MI5 ever got him.”

Adil frowned. “He died, didn’t he?” Adil asked, cautiously placing the glass he was holding back onto the bar, casting a covert glance to where Betsey was standing, who only shrugged in response.

Toby blinked in surprise. When people had asked his mother where her fiancé had gone, she tended to reply with a tight-lipped smile, stating only that he had left.

“…Mr Garland said he made a run for it. Which is what it looked like he was going to do when I told him about the tip-off.”

Adil tried hard not smile sarcastically at that. “He would say that,” He muttered. “He definitely got murdered.”

“… and what makes you say that?” Toby asked, almost cautiously.

Distantly Adil could hear Mr D’abbervile’s furious howling, could picture him once again reaching for the throat of a woman who wasn’t there, once again collapsing to the ground with a caved-in skull caused by a wound given to him so many weeks ago, the blood going _drip, drip, drip,_ but still never quite reaching the floor.

He blinked, trying to process what he’d just said, what Toby had just said.

“Um. Let’s call it a hunch.”

“Be nice if he did get murdered,” Toby mutters darkly, and Adil feels his mouth pull upwards in the barest hint of a smile.

“Nice one,” teased Betsey, mock glaring at Adil.

“Shut up,” Adil muttered under his breath, in a poor attempt at making sure Toby wouldn’t hear.

“What?” asked Toby.

“Nothing.”

“You should probably tell him about us eventually,” Betsey suggested later with the barest hint of sarcasm as they watched Toby leave.

Adil glared at her and didn’t dignify her with a response.

…

Getting caught in conversations with old Lord Hamilton was always a bit of a gamble, but somehow it was always more ridiculous when Adil arrived halfway through a discussion, especially the more ridiculous ones.

Lawrence hummed lightly to himself as he contemplated, whatever it was that Betsey had said. “Honestly, the fact that Priscilla caved in the skull of her… of Mr D’abbervile as soon as she realised he was a Nazi, was well… well, it was rather _attractive_ of her.”

“Too bad you didn’t think she was attractive while you were still alive your lordship.” Betsey blinked innocently over a drink that Adil had accidentally served her on autopilot, her eyebrows raised in challenge.

Lawrence gaped at her, outraged and appalled. “ _Excuse_ me _?_ ”

“You heard me.” Betsey grinned at him openly, leaning back slightly on her stool.

“Honestly, I’d think you were lucky she figured out she was capable of murder _after_ you’d already died, considering the way you treated her,” Theresa mused, gazing forlornly at Betsey’s drink.

Theresa blinked, as if suddenly aware of what she’d just said, blushing pale pink as Betsey burst out laughing. Lawrence spluttered in horror, before he stood up, readjusting his tie as he did so. He glanced over at Adil, as if he were looking for support. Adil only raised an eyebrow in question.

“She does have a point.”

Lawrence glared at him and promptly disappeared.

“I’m so sorry,” Theresa hissed across to Betsey and Adil. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

It took an awfully long time for Betsey to stop cackling after that.

…

Everyone _else_ seemed to find the way Toby began seeking out Adil endlessly entertaining. Adil was beginning to think it was something of a party trick, figuring out how to suppress how flustered it made him.

“Adil…” Toby leant heavily on the bar, his voice just above a whisper, eyes darting over the other patrons patiently waiting to be served. “D’you think you could bring me up a bottle at the end of your shift?”

Adil blinked. It was one thing, he supposed, to show up, basically invite himself into Toby’s room, on his own terms. And _technically,_ Toby asking him for room service wasn’t anything special. _But…_

“Anything in particular?” His hands remained forcibly steady around the mixer, a man and a woman two seats over from Toby beginning to look tense as they eyed their half-mixed cocktails.

“Whichever you think. Two glasses.” Toby pushed himself back from the bar and turned around quickly to leave as he said the last bit, the words coming out in a breathless rush, unclear if he should have said them, terrified now he had.

Adil tried very hard not to bite his lip as he watched him leave, hands stilling their work. So it _was_ an invitation. He still wasn’t sure what to make of it.

The rest of the shift seemed to trudge along slowly after that, teasing from Sonny and Betsey making it all the slower, if only because there was never a lull long enough for him to ask them to stop, even half-heartedly. It was nothing serious, just a bit of fun, the two of them genuinely excited that _something_ seemed to be happening between Adil and Toby again. Theresa kept up a stream of commentary, coming up with increasingly ridiculous theories about Toby’s plans, her voice speeding up and rising in pitch with her excitement, that Adil _really_ couldn’t bring himself to indulge in, his own nervousness making him impatient and irritable.

 _“It’s just drinks,”_ he hissed at them, glaring pointedly at Theresa, leaning back with an awkward expression as a person, a live one, went to sit in the seat that Theresa was already at, as yet unclear if Adil had accidentally managed to offend the elderly Lady before he’d even gotten a chance to serve her.

“Sorry,” Theresa muttered sheepishly, now standing beside Adil. “That’s on me. But really, don’t you think…”

…

The corridors were uncharacteristically empty as Adil walked up to Toby’s room after his shift. Any suspicion that Adil might have felt was overridden with his own mixed feelings about seeing Toby though, a large bottle and two glasses balanced on a tray in front of him.

Toby seemed equally nervous when he arrived, wide and hopeful smile stretched thinly over his face. It was only fair, considering that he _had_ pretty much run out of the bar before checking that Adil _actually_ wanted to come, or really, stay. The smile relaxed some when he saw that Adil had in fact, brought the requested second glass. Still, Adil couldn’t resist teasing, just a little bit. Seeing as Toby hadn’t _actually_ invited him properly.

“Are you expecting company Mr Hamilton?”

Toby’s face fell slightly. “Oh! Well, I, erm, I thought that… but I- I don’t suppose you… Oh, you’re the _worst._ ” He glared at Adil, nose scrunching in embarrassment at Adil’s grin.

“ _Would_ you like me to come in then?”

“Yes. You’re still the worst though.”

…

They had started on the chairs by the mantle, a surreal feeling if Adil was honest. But the seats were comfortable enough; the coffee table had enough space for the tray.

And honestly, they had both had, or at least Adil had, every intention of staying there, sitting comfortably across from each other. Truth be told, Adil couldn’t have said at which point had Toby reaching over to him, deciding that Adil’s chair was better than his own and falling into the it beside him, nor at which point they had both slid to the floor, Toby somehow managing to fall completely into Adil’s lap, both giggling conspiratorially, the bottle now conspicuously empty.

Adil rested his head on Toby’s shoulder, smiling into his throat. Toby looped his arms around the small of Adil’s back, running fingers idly up and down his spine, both glasses abandoned for the time being on the table, only one of which still contained any alcohol.

Toby proceeded to press messy kisses against the crown of Adil’s head as he felt Adil loop his arms over Toby’s shoulders, not quite clinging but definitely holding, and Adil found himself slipping backwards, his chair sliding back from where he had been leaning against it, leaving grooves in the carpet.

Lying flat on his back, blinking in shock as Toby scrambled to push himself up, Adil tried vainly to hide his breathlessness, Toby’s warmth seeping into where he remained pressed against Adil’s thighs and stomach.

Toby’s face was still terrifyingly close. Adil couldn’t stop staring at his mouth.

“We’re definitely drunk now, aren’t we?” Adil swallowed, pulling his gaze up to look Toby in the eye. He told himself that he _really_ should have pushed Toby off by now, but at that point in time, couldn’t quite remember why.

“Have been for a while I think.” Toby bit his lip, otherwise completely motionless. He looked rather like his brain had just upped and walked away.

Adil hummed slightly in agreement, trying to think through the fog in his head. Despite both their awkwardness, neither seemed to have any real intention of moving. Adil couldn’t help but wish that Toby hadn’t quite managed to move as far back as he had.

The coffee table now managed to obscure Adil’s view of the room on his right-hand side, which wouldn’t have mattered really, seeing as Toby should have been the only other person in the room with him. But it did mean when he heard a single disapproving cough, coming from over near the fireplace, Adil couldn’t immediately figure out where, or more importantly _who,_ it was.

He sat up suddenly, mild panic coursing through him, diluted by the alcohol in his system. The sudden movement left Adil crashing into Toby, knocking their heads together, causing Toby to wince. He fell onto his back, taking a moment to push himself up onto his elbows, frowning in hurt and confusion, the moment gone.

Adil knew, realistically, that no one could be in the room with them. But old fears ran awfully strong. It did mean, in his panic and inebriation, that he didn’t take into account one very important detail; that Toby hadn’t actually heard anything.

Occasionally, it could be said that Lord Hamilton no longer believed in corridors. And the following morning he would swear he hadn’t been disapproving. But presently, he was standing halfway out of the wall by the mantle, eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. He looked almost more panicked than Adil felt.

Adil glared at him when he realised. Lawrence also lost most of his awkwardness when he realised that he’d been spotted.

“Really? The floor? The bed is really not that far away,” Lawrence deadpanned, looking rather like he’d been sucking on lemon segments.

“Fuck off,” Adil scowled, contemplating the pros and cons of throwing the abandoned bottle at Lawrence’s head. It wouldn’t actually hit him, but it might have made Adil feel better.

“What?” Toby blinked, trying to figure out what Adil was looking at, or who he was talking to. He _really_ hoped Adil hadn’t been talking to him just then.

Adil blinked, dragging his eyes slowly back towards Toby. Lawrence rolled his eyes and left.

“Stupid ghost,” Adil muttered under his breath, staring mournfully at the gap between himself and Toby, put there when he’d knocked him backwards.

“Ghost…” Toby blinked down at himself. “’M drunk,” he muttered to his palms.

Adil reached over to the table and downed the last mouthful in the glass that had probably been Toby’s.

“Very stupid ghost,” he said, nodding seriously, crawling back over to Toby, placing himself squarely in his lap, a mirror of their previous positions.

Toby nodded back, still confused, also suddenly thoroughly distracted by how close Adil suddenly was again. “Okay.”

“Your stupid hotel is haunted,” Adil added for good measure, then blinked in surprise, unsure why he’d added that.

“Not my hotel,” Toby replied, sitting up properly, his face millimetres from Adil’s. “How do you know it’s haunted?”

“I can see them. You can’t,” Adil frowned. “That sounds crazy doesn’t it?”

“Yes, yes it does.”

“I’m drunk,” Adil deadpanned, staring at Toby unblinking, tilting his face up in challenge.

Toby grinned. “Yes! Yes, you are!”

Adil pressed forward and kissed him, grasping at Toby's collar and smiling when he felt Toby kiss him back.

…

It didn’t hit Adil right away, what he’d said the night before. In fact, he probably wouldn’t have remembered at all; there had been far more, ah, _important_ details to remember from last night, than telling Lawrence to fuck off. That would have been a non-event, if he hadn’t said it in front of Toby. Or followed it up with anything.

Toby had blinked awake earlier than Adil for a change, far more used to drinking than Adil was. Adil had woken up with a groan, sunlight streaming over the bed as Toby pulled the curtains back slightly, peering out, a cigarette twisting in his hand. Adil pulled the covers up over his head with a whine, despite his hangover _really_ not being bad enough to warrant such a response.

“Mmff,” he said as Toby flopped back on the bed, the curtain falling shut.

“Good morning to you too,” Toby mumbled, hiding his face in the blanket’s over Adil’s shoulder.

Adil pulled the blanket back just far enough to glare at Toby. He swallowed down his reaction to having Toby that close; it felt different, in the morning, in bed, mostly sober, compared to piss drunk and backlit by artificial light. Nevertheless, the memory of Toby on top of him the night before, and vice versa, foggy as it was, was already prepared to haunt Adil for the foreseeable future. He was still trying to work out how he’d managed to get as far as kissing him last night; his tongue tracing over his lips at the memory.

Toby appeared to have no such issue, and despite laying on top of the blankets, he still managed to mould himself to Adil’s back.

“You don’t have work today, do you?”

“I can’t stay here if that’s what you mean.” Adil held himself painfully still, hyperaware of having Toby so close.

“Hmff.” Toby pouted against Adil’s shoulder. “I can’t exactly stay either.”

“Toby… do you think you could…?” Adil dared look over his shoulder, catching Toby’s eye in his periphery. He swallowed. “Do you think you could move over a bit?”

Toby scrambled backwards, nearly falling off the opposite side of the bed in his hurry.

“I’m sorry, I just thought… well, um, last night we, um…” Toby twisted his signet ring frantically, watching Adil anxiously. "You were… and then… and you kissed me."

“Yes. We were also drunk,” Adil practically pleaded, sitting up.

“I wasn’t _that_ drunk. You’ve definitely seen me worse off than that,”

“You’re the one who decided it was good idea to share a chair last night.”

“Can you really say that was only my idea?”

“ _Yes,_ ”

“Nope, can’t remember, never happened.”

“…and you fell _on_ me…”

"Worked out rather well in the end though didn't it?" Toby raised an eyebrow, still rhythmically twisting his signet ring.

"...I suppose so." Adil rolled onto his back and glared up at the ceiling, trying not to make it obvious that he was blushing.

“ _You_ were talking some absolute rubbish last night though,” Toby grinned, making himself comfortable on the bed again, mindful of leaving a sizable gap between them. “Rambling on about ghosts and such like.”

Adil suppressed a wince. “Oh? If I don’t remember it, it didn’t happen though, right?”

“So _my_ stupid hotel isn’t haunted then?” Toby teased, thoroughly enjoying watching Adil squirm, even if he didn’t quite understand why Adil seemed to be taking it a little further to heart than strictly made sense.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Ghosts aren’t real,” Adil deadpanned.

“Ouch,” said Betsey, sticking her head through the wall.

“I’m hurt,” Sonny teased, suddenly leaning against the mantle.

“You really can be rather rude, you know,” Theresa pouted, draping herself over one of the chairs by the fireplace.

Adil resisted the urge to scream.

Toby, having heard nothing, rolled his eyes. “Of course not, I’m only teasing.”

“Good.” Adil dragged himself out of bed, rubbing at his chin roughly. “I should probably head home…” He eyed Theresa as he said it, even as he directed the words towards Toby. Theresa nodded, standing up and disappearing through the wall again. If people suddenly found themselves with reasons to exit the corridors that lead to the staff entrance, well, that was purely by chance.

Toby sighed, resigned. “I figured.”

He handed Adil back his jacket from where it had been removed the night before, Adil pulling on his trousers and shirt over the undershirt and shorts he’d slept in, attempting to flatten his hair back down again. He ended up having to borrow socks from Toby, his having mysteriously vanished from his shoes.

“Ghosts?” Toby teased. “Maybe the hotel really is haunted.

“No one stole your dirty socks Adil,” Betsey said in a very put-upon voice.

“Perhaps,” Adil smirked at Toby, ignoring Betsey entirely.

“Do you regret it?” Toby caught hold of Adil’s sleeve as he was leaving, his hand falling away from the doorknob before he could open it.

“Regret what?” Adil turned back to face him, suddenly very close again.

“The kiss. Last night.” Toby chewed his lip, avoiding Adil’s eyes. Adil felt his face soften.

“Not at all.” He pressed a kiss the Toby’s cheek, and disappeared out the door before Toby could react, leaving him staring at the once again closed door, eyes wide.

…

“Maybe your ghost theory is true.”

It was not the conversation starter Adil was expecting when he saw Toby arrive in the bar the following afternoon, but at least it wasn’t boring.

“Theory?” Adil tried his best to keep his voice light, Theresa and Billy snickering behind him.

“About the hotel being haunted. Someone keeps writing on my mirror,” he added by way of explanation. Theresa stopped laughing, pressing her lips together as she looked up at Adil.

“Oh?” Adil replied in a strangled voice, sliding a drink over to Toby. Yes, he did know exactly who the culprit was. He also knew that _perhaps,_ Toby hadn’t noticed the other messages she’d left him.

“Most of them are… rather inappropriate. But the smiley face is a nice touch I suppose.” Toby’s nose scrunched up in distaste as he recalled some of the more, ah, _explicate_ messages on his mirror. “I have no idea who’s writing them,” he added dryly, deciding against telling Adil that they seemed to imply that _someone_ knew about the two of them.

Adil was too busy thinking about all the ways he could strangle a person who was already dead, to notice Toby’s worry.

“Sounds… charming?” Adil offered. “Maybe it’s one of the chambermaids.” He quirked an eyebrow in amusement.

Toby grimaced, eyes wide and slightly panicked at the thought. Adil nearly felt sorry for him; _Toby_ didn’t know that Adil knew the messages were harmless, so long as they were cleaned off before the actual chambermaids really did see. But it was fun to tease him, just a little.

And if it meant he got to tease Theresa too, so much the better. Billy clearly seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Do I _look_ like a chambermaid to you?!” Theresa objected.

“…I think I like the ghost theory better…” Toby mumbled around his drink, lost in thought.

“Can we just tell ‘im?” Billy asked. “Tessa can leave ‘im a note, I’ll take out the lights or something.”

Adil tried to keep his face blank. He’d have liked to have responded to Billy in all honesty; a plan might have been a good idea, even if, objectively, it wasn’t a very good plan.

“ _You_ said you could see them but I couldn’t,” Toby suddenly blurted out, looking up from his drink.

“I _said_ I was drunk.”

“Well, yes. But you did see something didn’t you? You swore at something.”

“Toby, do you actually want there to be ghosts in the hotel?” Adil asked incredulously, glancing around cautiously, suddenly aware that other people were starting to filter into the bar from the restaurant.

Toby paused. “Not seriously. I guess I just thought it was a fun idea… I don’t know.”

A man grunted expectantly from the other side of the bar, displeasure deeply ingrained in the lines of his face. Toby slumped back on his stool and picked up his drink again.

“Come up after your shift?” he murmured into his glass.

Adil nodded, already reaching for a glass, barman’s smile slipping onto his face as he turned to the new customer.

…

There was really nothing Adil could have done that would have convinced the whole damn gang that following him into Toby’s room when his shift finally deemed it acceptable to be over was extremely unnecessary. Theresa seemed positively giddy at the idea of Toby finding out. Adil actually felt slightly ill at the thought.

Betsey, Sonny, Theresa and Billy all entered Toby’s room without waiting for Toby to open the door for Adil, Sonny tossing an apologetic look over his shoulder.

“Hello,” Toby smiled when he opened the door at last. Adil could only offer a wane and stretched smile in return.

This was probably a terrible idea.

“What if, _hypothetically,_ I told you that the hotel actually was haunted,” Adil turned to face Toby once he entered the room, hands clenched behind his back.

“…I’d say you were pulling my leg,” Toby replied, eyebrows raising slightly.

Adil nodded mostly to himself. That was fair, if he was honest. But it did mean Adil wasn’t quite sure where to go from there.

Betsey rolled her eyes and threw the first thing she managed to grab off Toby’s desk. Unfortunately, it was a rather large encyclopedia.

It hit the wall opposite with a loud _thunk,_ denting the spine quite obviously even from the other side of the room, falling open where it landed, multiple pages bent. Toby jumped, then turned wide eyed back to face Adil. Adil stared at the wall and nodded to himself again, mouth a tight-lipped line as he took a breath.

“So that was Betsey,” he started, Betsey offering a lazy wave despite knowing Toby couldn’t see it. “And Tess- _Lady Theresa_ is the one writing messages on your bathroom mirror-”

“I’m also writing in his notebook, the one in the back corner, but I’m starting to think he doesn’t actually use that one. Over there.” She pointed it out specifically, Adil scooping it up out of curiosity, flicking through a handful of pages before snapping it shut with a grimace.

“ _Really?_ ” he hissed at her, appalled. Theresa shrugged. Toby continued to watch Adil, confusing starting to edge on mild terror. Adil glance back at him with a wince. “Sorry, um, she’s writing in this too. You, ah, probably don’t actually want to read it though. Actually, you should probably burn it.”

“…Okay…”

“Um, so Sonny and Billy are also here at the moment, and I think Billy might be about to… ah, yes, okay so he likes to take out the electricity,” Adil rambled, the lights suddenly all going out at once, then coming back on a few seconds later.

“Hotel’s haunted…” Toby muttered to himself, glancing around the room as if looking for said ghosts. “At what point do we stop talking in hypotheticals?” he replied with a strangled voice.

“Um. Depends on if you think I’m insane or not,” Adil bit his lip.

“I mean… it’s definitely insane right? You do get that, right?”

Adil rolled his eyes. “I’m aware.”

“Oh dear,” muttered Sonny, both amused and concerned.

“How long…?”

Adil winced. “Since… since I, um…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“… is there anyone else besides these four?”

Lord Hamilton seemed that was the appropriate time to stick his head, quite literally, through the door.

“Am I not invited to this?” he asked, slightly put out.

“Not even a little bit,” Betsey deadpanned, shoving him back through the wall.

“Ah… no, anyone who died here sticks around for a bit before the move on,” Adil continued with a wince.

“Is my father-?”

“Yes, although he mostly picks fights with Mr D’abbervile, which is _actually_ more entertaining than you’d think.”

“Uhuh…” Toby’s eyes were still too wide, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion and concern, processing, but very slowly.

“Still like the haunted hotel theory?” Adil bit his lip, slightly terrified of what might happen if Toby didn’t want to believe him.

Toby blinked, relaxing some. “…could be worse I suppose.”

…

_Billy found himself wandering away from the offices more and more. Then, Mr Taylor got leave, and Dora started to come back to London for visits, and Peggy found that she didn’t cry so often. Billy smiled. They would be okay._

…

“How do you know Mr D’abbervile was murdered?” Toby was shirtless and smoking, lying back on the bed, arching his neck each time he released the cigarette smoke from his lungs. Adil was curled up on the other side of the bed in Toby’s missing shirt, blankets hugged to his chest as he watched him.

“He likes to yell about it. A lot.” Adil thought perhaps he could leave out the part where Lucien re-enacted his death on a loop when he got too angry.

“…Do you know how he died?” Toby rolled his head to the side, cigarette momentarily forgotten.

“Yes.” Adil raised an eyebrow at him.

“Are you going to tell me?” Toby pouted at him. “I thought we were going to be all about talking these days,” he teased.

Adil rolled his eyes, but couldn’t stop the hint of a smile from passing like a shadow over his face.

“You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

“I would. Big on trust these days too,” Toby huffed stubbornly, his own smile creeping out as he placed his cigarette back between his teeth for a moment, taking one last drag before stubbing it out on the ashtray by the bedstand. “I think if I can believe that you’re seeing ghosts I can believe anything. I’m a sucker like that.”

“Fine,” Adil ran his teeth over his lip as he considered, momentarily getting distracted by the way Toby tracked the movement. “Your mother attacked him with a table ornament. In his bedroom, after you told him about your tip off, just after- before the bombing. _Apparently,_ Mr Garland got through to her. Although I can’t imagine how _he_ got involved in any of it.” He raised an eyebrow a Toby in question.

Toby appeared as though he didn’t know what to do with his face. Equally shocked and incredulous at the thought of his mother killing her fiancé in spite the way she had shut Toby down the last time he had tried to speak a word against him that same day, and awkward, because he did in fact, know how Mr Garland had gotten involved. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times like a stunned goldfish, before swallowing and trying again.

“Sounds ridiculous,” he croaked out finally, still stunned.

“I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” Adil huffed, though he was thoroughly enjoying Toby’s reaction.

“No, I believe you! I think. It just that… well it’s hard to believe _she_ could… I don’t doubt you.” He swallowed. “Also, I, erm, I may have sort of, possibly, maybe… asked Garland for help?” Toby screwed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t see Adil’s reaction, scrunching is face up as if bracing for an attack.

“You did what?”

“Well, you- oh this is going to sound _ridiculous-_ ” Toby arced his back and threw himself back down onto the bed again, fingers flexing for another cigarette already. “You said not to do it on my own. So I didn’t. I didn’t _tell_ him anything. But, erm. Oh, shut up.”

Adil had propped his head up on his hand, and was shaking his head slowly and incredulously at Toby.

“You really are an idiot,” he said in amazement.

“Your idiot?” Toby asked tentatively.

Adil rolled his eyes and allowed his head to fall back onto the pillow, rolling back around to inspect the ceiling.

“ _Maybe._ ”

…

Theresa skipped happily beside Adil, already picking up where they’d left off earlier mid conversation, the corridor miraculously empty.

One more particularly invasive question had Adil whirling around to face her, nearly cracking the back of his head against the wall.

“ _Why._ Do you even want to know that? What benefit could you _possibly_ gain in even being _interested_ in that aspect of my relationship with Toby?” Adil couldn’t even summon the will to be angry, and although he had long since stopped being shocked by the forwardness of Theresa’s questions, every now and then one or two stuck out. There was something there, something she was looking for, and Adil wasn’t sure Theresa was even aware she was doing it.

Theresa blinked owlish at him, that sugary smile slipping ever so slightly. _Definitely not aware then._

“Why do you even want to know so much about me and Toby? Because you never seem to be asking to learn stuff about Toby as a _person_. I thought your obsession with _him_ was why you were so…” he didn’t want to say _annoying_ but well, it would seem Theresa picked up on it anyway. She really could be selectively oblivious when she wanted to be.

Theresa pouted slightly, hurt, and without her usual amount of performance. Her brow furrowed in confusion.

Adil sighed. “Why Toby?”

She brightened back up at that, ever thrilled to ramble happily about Toby. It could have been sweet if it wasn’t so infuriating for Adil, specifically.

“Well-”

“I don’t mean superficially. I already know that bit.” He screwed his face up in mock distaste. Theresa could be awfully crude when she wanted to be.

Theresa grinned. “Oh, I _know._ Hmmm, well I suppose I can’t exactly sing his praises about his _charm,_ he can be awfully abrupt sometimes can’t he?”

“Might have something to do with the fact that you aren’t actually good at flirting.” Adil muttered under his breath and he resumed walking back down to the cellar to count stock.

“That’s awfully rude of you Adil,” she shot him her usual exaggerated pout, eyes wide and pleading in jest. “Well, in a way it’s sort of nice I suppose. _Charming_ men always seen to want something from me, have an agenda. Or you spend the whole time trying to feed into their ego to keep their attention. It’s exhausting. No one ever has to do that with Toby.”

“Can’t imagine why he can’t stand women trying to feed his ego,” Adil said dryly with an unimpressed look.

“You’re really not pulling your punches today, are you Adil?”

“You make it so easy,” he teased lightly, rolling his eyes at her. “Toby also showed me some of the new notes you left him…” he raised an eyebrow at her.

“Oh dear.”

“Tessa… you _really_ aren’t the best person to be offering relationship advice. To anyone, if I’m honest.”

“I just thought he could use the help!” she pouted again, eyes wide and shining with mischief.

“Yes, but why are you giving him sex advice from the _very few_ points that _I_ gave you? Or quoting romance novels at him?”

“ _Maybe,_ I thought he could use the reminder.” Theresa stuck her chin out and peered down at Adil with poorly executed mock superiority. “The two of you are being _ridiculously_ slow about this. Have you even kissed him yet?”

“You’re really annoying.”

“Oh, I pride myself on it,” she grinned.

…

_The new pianist was an older man with tired eyes who flinched at the sound of breaking glass. But he spoke to the piano as he practiced, smiled at the little nicks in her keys, and Sonny said; he’ll do._

…

“Oh, _trust me,_ no one understands the uncontrollable need to be an asshole to Toby better than _me_ …”

This felt like a very strange argument to be walking in on, and Adil thought, perhaps, he should just turn around and pretend nothing had happened. But well… Lawrence and Lucien could be awfully entertaining when they were at their peak stupidity.

“…and honestly, I almost could have admired the way you so very _effectively,_ ” Lawrence’s sarcasm was biting, he and Mr D’abbervile standing off against each other like a pair of deranged street cats that hadn’t quite decided if they were on for a punch up just yet. “…isolated and abused him, and _really,_ the manipulation was quite clever most of the time – you really gave Mr Garland a run for his money a lot of the time in that regard, _but-”_

“-You’re just mad that I-”

“I am actually absolutely furious that you-”

“-got engaged to your wife-”

“-had sex with my wife-”

“ _You were dead you cheating piece of-”_

“-which means that there was really never any option but to hate you. Trust me, no one was more surprised than _I,_ that I managed to support my son’s, ah, _preferences,_ but if it manages to enrage you _that much,_ then so be it.”

Mr D’abbervile looked rather like he’d been smacked across the face despite the fact that this was not a new argument between the two men. He blinked in disbelief at Lawrence, drawing in a breath that he didn’t need and-

“ _You had been dead for_ months! _By the time Priscilla and I- you hypocritical bastard-”_

Adil rolled his eyes with a dry smile and walked away, the sounds of Lord Hamilton and Mr D’abbervile once again dissolving into incoherent screaming and the dull sounds of punches echoing along the corridor.

…

_It was a quiet day when the police came by and said they were closing the D’abbervile case due to lack of evidence, and the ghost in the east wing finally stopped screaming for Priscilla. Like he couldn’t quite believe it._

…

It probably wasn’t the safest option for Adil to keep showing up at Toby’s room uninvited after his shifts whenever he felt like it. And it wasn’t to say that he didn’t care; he did. The thought and memory of getting caught had caused him more lost hours of sleep than he cared to think about. But sometimes Adil just wanted to talk to a _living_ person about things. And seeing as Toby knew about the ghosts now…

“Did I tell you about the latest drama between your father and Mr D’abbervile?” Adil asked idly, staring up at the ceiling. The paint was starting to crack around the light fixture.

Toby was lying on the opposite end of the bed, feet propped up on his pillow, occasionally nudging Adil’s shoulder.

“The one where Lucien called Father a hypocrite about sleeping around? Or a newer one?”

“Newer. Actually, I’m not sure what they were yelling about, but Mr D’abbervile did get thrown across the bomb shelter. I’m so I’m assuming they were yelling about your mother again.”

Toby snickered, rolling onto his side and propping the side of his face against Adil’s ankle, having to nearly curl into a foetal position to do so.

“Have I shown you the new notes Theresa left me yesterday? She’s really starting to outdo herself,” Toby said with a sly smile.

“Oh no.”

“Oh, I _know.”_

Toby left the bed for a moment to walk across to his desk, scooping up the notebook scrawled with elegantly looping handwriting – nothing at all like Toby’s rushed chicken scratch. He tossed the book over beside Adil’s head and flopped back down, this time lying the right way around beside Adil.

Adil flicked through the more recent pages, the top left corner marked with the dates solely for their own amusement. It was, _interesting,_ let’s say, seeing how Theresa’s questions and banter had evolved over time.

Adil’s eyebrows wandered up to his hairline in increments, knitting together in the middle. He glanced over at Toby through the corner of his eye, otherwise not moving.

“Is she getting worse?” Toby asked.

“Well… that depends. She _used_ to have a horrid fascination with-”

“ _Oh,_ yes I remember, don’t remind me!” Toby fell back dramatically, throwing an arm across his face. Adil grinned over at him, replacing the notebook on Toby’s chest. “I do like being able to ‘talk’ to her about you sometimes though. When she’d not feeling so…” Toby made an idle gesture, but Adil got his point.

“Hmm, yes, me too sometimes.”

“What other _ridiculous_ fights did my father and Mr D’abbervile get into since last time?” Toby rolled onto his side, still smiling.

“Oh… there was a fight over who was the worst influence in your life. I’m not actually sure who won that one though.”

“…in what sense?”

“Mr D’abbervile was trying to argue that your father was worse.”

“Oh he _would,_ wouldn’t he?”

…

_The new singer was a girl with hollow cheeks and bloodied knuckles, who sung with a sort of fury that made Betsey smile._

…

Adil fell face first onto the bed, fully dressed including his shoes, parallel to the foot of the bed, with a groan. Toby glanced up from his desk, book falling shut as his attention was diverted.

“Are you… okay?” Toby’s voice was slightly strangled, mostly in confusion, eyeing up Adil’s body.

“I’m tired,” came Adil’s reply, stuffy and muffled by the blankets, which made sense seeing as his nose and mouth were blatantly buried against the mattress, uncaring that he couldn’t see, or more importantly, breathe.

Toby tilted his head to one side, a smile tugging his mouth up on one side, amused by the theatrics. He got up and crossed to the other side of the bed so that he was looking at the top of Adil’s head rather than his feet, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed but relaxed.

“Are you planning on staying like that?”

“…Yes.” Adil’s reply was perhaps more petulant than he would have liked, but he still refused to move, doubling down on his stubbornness now that he decided that Toby had made a Thing out of it. If he had thought that Toby wasn’t going to continue to stare, he _might_ have moved his arms up to prop his face up from the mattress a little, instead of leaving them pressed against his sides where he’d fallen.

“You can’t be comfortable.”

“I assure you I am,” Adil muttered sarcastically, pretending to resent Toby’s amused tone.

Toby shrugged. “Well, if you’re sure you’re fine where you are…”

Toby pulled back the covers and climbed into bed properly, shoving one foot under Adil’s chest, the other prodding at his face. Adil turned his face just far enough over to glare daggers at Toby’s shit eating grin.

“You’re the worst and I don’t know why I love you.”

Toby froze, holding his breath, eyes wide. Adil continued to glare at him, although it had developed a slightly glazed and panicked quality.

“You… have bad taste in men?” Toby choked out, swallowing thickly.

Adil smacked the foot still pressed against his face. “Only I’m allowed to say that,” he said, looking Toby in the eye.

“You literally never have though.”

Adil scowled.

Toby rolled his eyes, barely suppressing the tiny pleased smile poking out the corner of his mouth.

“I-”

“Don’t-”

“-love you too.”

Adil groaned, burying his face back into the blankets, wondering how long he’d have to lie like that before he suffocated himself. Toby watched him with bittersweet fondness, running the hem of the sheets over his cuticles.

“You said it first,” Toby said, raising an eyebrow despite the fact that Adil wasn’t looking at him.

“I’ve always said it first.”

Toby bit his lip, glancing across at Adil apologetically through his eyelashes. “I’m sorry.”

Adil sighed, pulling himself up into a sitting position so that he could face Toby properly, reaching out to pull one of his hands into his.

“Don’t be.”

…

_The days turn to weeks and the weeks turn to months, and each day it gets a little easier; to smile, to laugh, to be at ease and happy with what she has. As Priscilla’s hands stopped their shaking, as Priscilla’s nightmares of the bombing, of That Man, faded to the back of her mind to be examined only at will, as Priscilla found her way back to herself, Lawrence breathed a sigh of relief. And he smiled._

…

The chefs had been complaining all day. Unable to light stove tops because the gas taps had jammed; unable to neatly cut or slice or chop as knives went dull before they’d even finished being sharpened. Guests had lamented that their windows wouldn’t open; the old wood swollen shut in the heat a peculiar occurrence, but not, technically, out of the realm of possibility.

Lawrence had been following him though, and Adil couldn’t quite work out why. The bar had been busy recently, almost on par with its pre-bombing days, and he’d been more than a little overwhelmed, but it was comforting in its own way; familiar even if it wasn’t pleasant.

But he had been rather distant for the last few days. And it had been awfully difficult to catch a moment of peace.

“What are you doing on the roof again Mr Joshi?” Lawrence Hamilton was glaring at him, with that same glare that every staff member and long-term guest had been well familiar with before he’d died.

It was the expression he had once usually reserved only for Toby; that disappointed look that might have turned to anger if he’d wanted to appear as if he cared enough to actually start a fight. The one that had scoffed at Toby’s dreams of Oxford, and was replaced with sceptical praise at Freddie’s aspirations for the air force. Adil did not appreciate that look.

“I’m on my break,” Adil replied, not looking away from the road. There were two crows sitting on the gate this time, deep in their own conversation about whatever it was that crows cawed about.

“…Really. Because, forgive me if I’m coming across as _overbearing,_ but the last time I found you up here, you weren’t exactly… in the best mindset, let’s say,” Lawrence continued in a critical tone.

“I’m not going to- I don’t want to _jump._ I haven’t wanted to…” his protests died on his tongue, as he stared incredulously down at himself. Even Lawrence’s face softened slightly, in dawning realisation.

“I don’t want to die anymore. I don’t think I have in a while,” Adil murmured, wide eyed, looking in Lawrence’s general direction but not really seeing him. “I really did just need some air.”

Lawrence offered him a closed half smile, tilting his head to one side.

“Well. Good for you then.”

…

_Toby came into the bar fairly early these days, two seats over from Joe with his own something to work on, though nothing confidential these days. Adil passed him drinks, and Toby would smile at him, brushing fingers over fingers, and on occasion he whispered, just barely loud enough to be heard, a gentle reminder in case Adil ever managed to forget;_

_“I love you.”_

_And Adil smiled._

**Author's Note:**

> here's [the original ghost au chain](https://aziraphalesangel.tumblr.com/post/623075117401079808/ghost-au-where-adil-got-close-enough-to-dying-or) which you should definitely read, if only because it's a lot funnier than the fic, and has a few extra things that I couldn't quite work in here. thanks again to szonklin for indulging me :D


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